Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Police Raid Newspaper Printing Plants

November 17, 2009, 12:08 pm — Updated: 1:36 pm -->
Police Raid Newspaper Printing प्लांट्स

By RUSS BUETTNER

Updated, 1:19 p.m. The New York City police raided the offices of three major city dailies and El Diario on Tuesday morning as part of an investigation into allegations of corruption within the union that delivers newspapers in the metropolitan area.

A warrant was served at the printing plant of The New York Times in College Point, Queens, by New York City police officers working in conjunction with the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, as investigators sought paperwork related to the work of the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers Union, which bundles and trucks newspapers across the region.
The offices of The New York Daily News on West 33rd Street, The New York Post on Avenue of the Americas and the offices of El Diario, a Spanish-language newspaper, in the MetroTech center in Brooklyn, were also searched, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing।

No one was arrested, and the search warrants issued sought to collect records।

The union is involved in the delivery of newspapers for The Post and The Daily News and as well as El Diario। One focus of the investigation was whether union leaders abused seniority rules to promote favored insiders, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

When asked about the law enforcement activity, Paul J. Browne, the New York Police Department’s chief spokesman, said, “The search warrants were executed today as part of an ongoing investigation।”

He declined to comment further.

Source: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/police-raid-printing-plant-of-the-new-york-times/
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Activists Rally For Religious Runaway

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 6:54 AM

Updated: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 7:19 AM



COLUMBUS, Ohio — Activists held a rally Monday across the street from the courthouse where the custody of religious runaway Rifqa Bary was to be decided, but there will be no decision in the case until at least December.

As a judge issued a continuance until Dec. 22, about 100 people some from out of state gathered in a park on the other side of High Street, 10TV News reported.

Some of them expressed beliefs condemning Islam, while others criticized the manner in which Bary's case has been handled.

"We came out today to say they're in violation of (Bary's) civil rights," said protester Pamela Geller. "We live in a country where you have freedom of religion. Where is Rifqa Bary's freedom of religion? And why aren't people standing up? It's an outrage."

Bary's case gained national attention this summer when she fled her New Albany home and later turned up with a pastor and his wife in Orlando, Fla.

Bary claimed she left home because she converted from Islam to Christianity and feared her father would kill her.

Florida and Ohio found no credible threat to the girl's safety, and Bary was returned to Ohio last month.

She remains in foster care.

Watch 10TV News and refresh 10TV.com for continuing coverage.


Source:  http://www.10tv.com/live/content/local/stories/2009/11/17/story_bary_rally.html?sid=102

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These are they which came out of great tribulation,..



9After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;

10And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.

11And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,

12Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.

13And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?

14And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

15Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.

16They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.
17For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
 
Revelation 7:9-17.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Catholic bishops' influence on healthcare bill


Cardinal Francis George (notice the Vatican flag).



The church's support of Democratic healthcare efforts gave it a seat at the table during last week's healthcare vote -- and helped it add a controversial antiabortion amendment.

By James Oliphant

November 16, 2009


Reporting from Washington - For weeks, the Catholic Church has asked its U.S. parishioners to work toward ensuring that tough language restricting federal funding of abortion is included in healthcare overhaul legislation.

It has gone so far as to insert a prayer into the weekly bulletins of dioceses across the country, imploring Congress to "act to ensure that needed healthcare reform will truly protect the life, dignity and healthcare of all."

But as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the church's governing body in America, tries to rally its forces outside Congress, it is also using its leverage within.

A number of groups oppose abortion rights, but the church is one of the few to also support Democratic efforts to overhaul healthcare. That has given the church a seat at the negotiating table.

It used that influence this month as the House of Representatives prepared to vote on the healthcare legislation. Negotiators for the church worked with lawmakers to add an amendment to ensure that federal insurance subsidies do not wind up funding elective abortion.

Supporters of abortion rights said that the amendment would in effect block coverage for abortion even when individuals paid for policies themselves. But the House adopted the amendment, and the bill passed.

The Catholic Church came to play a role in the legislation partly because it has long supported wider healthcare access for low-income Americans.

"Healthcare has been one of their basic goals out there for years," said Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, the Democratic sponsor of the abortion amendment and himself a Catholic.

The church also had amassed goodwill during years of working with Democrats on such issues as tax credits for the working poor, immigration, climate change and nutrition programs. It had built a level of trust that other antiabortion groups could not.

The church "played a critical role in a number of initiatives over many years that affect our most vulnerable people," said Ellen Nissenbaum, legislative director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which focuses on issues involving low- and moderate-income people. "Their work has made a tremendous difference on fundamental issues of poverty and economic justice."

As House floor action on the healthcare bill drew near, church leaders talked to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

Pelosi, also a Catholic, let the House vote on Stupak's amendment despite the strong objections of abortion-rights supporters in her caucus.

It was natural for Stupak to consult with the bishops conference in order to draft the amendment. But the church's role in the process has drawn criticism.

"They came to the Hill, locked themselves in a room with leadership and threatened to take the bill down in the 11th hour," said Laurie Rubiner, vice president of public policy for Planned Parenthood, which supports abortion rights.

The Stupak amendment applies to people who use federal subsidies to buy insurance on a new "exchange," or insurance marketplace.

But Rubiner and other abortion-rights supporters say the amendment will affect people who buy policies in the exchange even without subsidies. They say the amendment will prompt insurers to drop abortion coverage from all health policies offered in the exchange, subsidized by the government or not.

The church had rejected compromise language on abortion.

"I guess I'm very surprised that an entity that purports to be a supporter of healthcare reform and an advocate for poor and low-income women would take such a hard line and refuse to compromise," Rubiner said.

More liberal Catholic organizations say the bishops don't speak for the mainstream. In a recent poll commissioned by Catholics for Choice, 68% of Catholic voters surveyed disapproved of the bishops' unyielding stance on insurance coverage for abortion.

"Catholic voters clearly have a different mind-set than the bishops do," said Jon O'Brien, president of the abortion-rights group.

The leader of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Francis George, of President Obama's hometown of Chicago, has been a foil for the president at times.

When the University of Notre Dame invited Obama to speak earlier this year, the cardinal called the occasion "an extreme embarrassment" to Catholics.

"Some of his policies we think are simply wrong," George said in an interview in Rome last month.

"At those moments, we have to do what you always have to do in a free country. You can criticize the politics of the government."

Last week, the bishop of Providence, R.I., blasted Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.) for voting against the Stupak amendment. Bishop Thomas J. Tobin accused Kennedy, son of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), of "false advertising" for describing himself as a Catholic, and said Kennedy should not receive Holy Communion.

"It's not too late for you to repair your relationship with the Church," Tobin wrote in a letter to Kennedy.

The church's attitude led Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Petaluma), the leader of the House Progressive Caucus, to ask last week whether the conference's federal tax exemption as a religious organization should be revoked.

The bishops have pledged to be just as active in the Senate healthcare debate as they have been in the House.

They will probably have the help of one or more Democrats who oppose abortion, such as Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania.

"The conference will remain vigilant and involved throughout this entire process," Cardinal George vowed last week.

joliphant@latimes.com

Janet Hook of the Washington bureau contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times


Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-healthcare-bishops16-2009nov16,0,6267413,full.story



 P.S. Bolds and Highlights added.  
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While America parties and slumbers under the spell of  Domino's Pizzas, Budweiser, and Sports;  While their mental faculties are being dulled; The Catholic Church and its operatives are making the final advances towards an irreversible political monopoly in plain sight of those who have eyes to see.          
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Food summit turns down UN funding appeal



By ARIEL DAVID, AP

posted: 7 HOURS 7 MINUTES AGO

ROME -Pope Benedict XVI decried the steadily worsening tragedy of world hunger on Monday after a global summit rebuffed a U.N. call to commit billions of dollars a year for a new strategy to help poor countries feed themselves.

The meeting at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization did unite nearly 200 countries behind a pledge to increase aid to farmers in poor countries to help the developing world lessen its dependence on foreign food aid.

Only hours after the three-day summit began, some 60 heads of state and dozens of ministers rejected the U.N.'s call to commit $44 billion annually for agricultural development in these nations. The final declaration also omitted a pledge, sought by the United Nations, to eradicate hunger by 2025.

"Hunger is the most cruel and concrete sign of poverty," Benedict told the delegates after the document was approved. "Opulence and waste are no longer acceptable when the tragedy of hunger is assuming ever greater proportions."

The last previous papal appearance at a food summit in Rome came in 1996, when Pope John Paul II delivered a speech.

U.N. officials say roughly 1 billion people — one of every six people on the planet — don't get enough to eat.

As the conference opened, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told participants it was unacceptable that so many go hungry even though the world has enough food.

Helping the poor become self-sufficient lies at the core of food security, he said. "Our job is not just to feed the hungry, but to empower the hungry to feed themselves."

FAO, which is hosting the conference at its headquarters, says the share of international aid that is allocated to agriculture has steadily declined over the last three decades. Helping the hungry has largely entailed rich countries sending food assistance rather than technology, irrigation help, fertilizer or high-yield seed. Much of this food aid is purchased from the wealthy nations' own farmers.

While the summit agreed on the need to increase agriculture's share of international aid, it did not allocate the $44 billion annually — 17 percent of overall foreign aid — the FAO says is necessary to feed a population that is expected to grow to 9 billion by 2050.

While content with the general policy shift, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf voiced frustration over the lack of specifics in unusually frank comments.

"I am not satisfied that some of the concrete proposals I made were not accepted," he told a news conference. "There was no consensus on this and I regret it."

Vatican Radio called the lack of a firm money commitment "disturbing," while humanitarian groups claimed the summit had largely failed. Greenpeace called the declaration "empty rhetoric," while Oxfam said the strategy it laid out was "honorable" but that nothing had been done to ensure funds and hold governments accountable for their promises.

Interpretations on the outcome varied greatly.

FAO's Assistant Director-General Alexander Mueller said governments kept away from firm commitments due to the economic crisis and because they expect they will need to channel money to the developing world at next month's summit on climate change in Copenhagen.

Delegates from the United States, the world's No. 1 food donor, say they believe wealthy nations should follow the specific needs of each recipient country rather than allocate a fixed amount to agriculture.

"What this declaration represents is a significant change — not just an acknowledgment of a problem but an articulation of solutions, with a focus on country-led programs and strategies," said the head of the U.S. delegation, acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development Alonzo Fulgham.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, meanwhile, announced that more than one in seven American households struggled to put enough food on the table in 2008, the highest number since the agency began tracking food security levels in 1995. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said it could be even higher in 2009.

Kanayo Nwanze, the president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, said poor countries cannot expect the rest of the world to come up with all the money they need and should instead invest a greater share of their own public funds in the sector.

"We cannot expect international assistance to move countries out of poverty, out of hunger," he said.


2009-11-16 15:46:40
 
Source:  http://money.aol.com/article/food-summit-turns-down-un-funding-appeal/764901
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World Food Summit; Or just another Globalist NWO Masonic Junket?



Today was the first day of the World Food Summit in Rome, Italy. The Food and Agriculture Organization, an arm of the United Nations is hosting the conference that will run until Wednesday, November 18. The summit is being held to discuss hunger in the world. The World Summit on Food Security, will attempt to cut in half the amount of people that are experiencing hunger by 2015; It will call on developed nations to contributed funds to achieve this goal. That sounds almost (exactly) like the U.N's Millennium Development Goals? Why the redundancy?

In a time of widespread economic difficulties, it seems odd to demand more from those industrialized countries whose citizens are having to survive on less. I t defies logic how at such a time as this, a call for greater contributions can be made? It seems as if these career (internationalists) conference attenders are constantly at a Summit. They are consistently trying to impose global binding legislation that ignores all national sovereignty's. There are so many needy people in the world that a person has to draw the line; Whether they will continue to fund banana republic dictators or feed it own citizens since most foreign aid winds up in the pockets of the few in power; and never reaches the needy.

I wonder if these functions are just an excuse for the diplomats to fly to an exotic location to wine and dine?
After all the hard luck stories about famine, war, and natural disasters never end. It seems that there is a class of people from all governments that live off the misery of others; They will bring a poster with some pictures of malnourished people, and provide some statistics, then ask for money. I wonder if still others that frequent these meetings are only there for the sights, the sounds, and the creature comforts. Either way, there is plenty of need right here in the U.S. A. How much longer will the perpetrators of war and famine continue to exploit the generosity of good Christian people? If they just want the fish, why won't they learn how to fish? The give me, give me never ends!

It's high time that these diplomats, these dignitaries bring their brown bags to these monthly junkets. While they fill the industrialized nations with guilt about the hungry and the hopeless; They should begin by sacrificing themselves. Perhaps, if they didn't live so well many of their fellow countrymen wouldn't live so badly? They should begin their charity drives within their own countries, then go abroad.

Benedict XVI will also be on hand to address the Summit. Now, why does he constantly get involved in these global government marathons? Does he have a vested interest in them? Is the Vatican a state, or the seat of the wholly sea? Of course, he will probably unveil another edict or a bull about what he thinks the developed nations should do. Will we strip bare the haves to clothe the have nots? I believe there is a commandment that calls that stealing.

Another summit, more pleas for change, intrusion on national sovereignty, more Vino & Pollo alla Cacciattore. Salute: Mangia!

The affair at L'Aquila wasn't so bad; So they are back for more Martini & Rossi.


Arsenio.

The 10 Provinces, the 10 Regions


The 10 FEMA Regions



The 10 Jesuit Provinces of the United States



Neither cast ye your pearls before swine


Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.


Matthew 7:6
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Sunday, November 15, 2009

CQ Transcript: Secretary of State Clinton on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’


"But I think what you obviously know is...to work with the Afghan government. And one of the points...our goal is to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaida."



CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Nov. 15, 2009 – 5:57 p.m.


CQ Transcript: Secretary of State Clinton on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’
CQ Transcriptswire

SPEAKERS: DAVID GREGORY, HOST

SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON

SECRETARY OF EDUCATION ARNE DUNCAN

FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH

REVEREND AL SHARPTON

[*] GREGORY: First, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is traveling in Asia with President Obama. I spoke to her hours ago from Singapore.

Secretary Clinton, welcome back to “Meet the Press.”

CLINTON: It’s great to talk with you from Singapore, David. Thank you.

GREGORY: Let me begin by something that’s very controversial back home, as you well know, the decision by the attorney general to transfer some of the high-profile prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, from the prison there, the self-proclaimed perpetrators of 9/11, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and make them stand trial in New York.

As you know, the reaction has been fierce on Capitol Hill among mostly Republicans, but some Democrats too, saying that there’s no reason to give these prisoners the rights of the common criminal. On the other side, you have Mayor Bloomberg of New York saying that it’s the right thing to do, to make them stand trial just a few, a few blocks away from where the World Trade Center stood. Where do you stand on this?

CLINTON: Well, David, this was a very comprehensively examined decision that the attorney general and the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense reached in who would be tried in federal court, who would be in the military commission system that the Obama administration has revised. And, you know, I’m not going to second guess any decision that the attorney general made.

But I think it’s important that Mayor Bloomberg, that our law enforcement officials in New York, you know, all believe that New York City not only can handle this, but that it is appropriate to go forward in the very area where these people launched this horrific attack against us. You know, I was a senator from New York, and I -- I want to see them brought to justice. The most important thing for me is that, you know, they pay the ultimate price for what they did to us on 9/11.

And if the attorney general and veteran prosecutors think this is the best way to achieve that outcome, then I think that, you know, they should be given the right to move forward as they see appropriate.

GREGORY: Do you agree with those who say that this exposes New York City to unnecessary risks of terrorism?

CLINTON: No. And I think Mayor Bloomberg, the police commissioner Ray Kelly, these are, you know, people who put the interests of New York above all else, and they clearly believe that this can be handled in New York. I have the greatest confidence in the law enforcement personnel and leadership in New York City.

Obviously, it’s -- it’s a very painful experience for families to have to go through. That is something that, you know, pains me. You know, but we are a nation of laws, and we have two different venues for holding these people accountable, the military commissions and our federal courts, and the individual decisions that the Justice Department and the Defense Department have made, along with the advice of veteran prosecutors, I -- I think should be respected.

GREGORY: When is a realistic deadline now for Americans to expect the prison at Guantanamo Bay to be shut down?

CLINTON: Well, I think as soon as possible. But obviously, there are some challenges. You know, I think that every American should understand that closing Guantanamo was a commitment that President Obama made. It was very well received around the world, because Guantanamo had come to represent not the America that we all believe in and that we hold dear, our values and the way we behave.

And so closing it is a commitment that the president made that he will follow through on. The timing is kind of dependent upon how we answer all these other issues.

GREGORY: Let me move on to another big issue, and that’s Afghanistan. When we are going to hear the president’s decision about whether to send more troops?

CLINTON: I mean, the president is going to be making that decision when he is ready to announce it. I think he stopped at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska on his way to Asia, and I know that he told the troops there that he’s going to make a decision that will, you know, give them the support they need for the mission that he asks them to fulfill, and that he’s also going to make the case to the American public both to support the mission and, as always, to support our troops.

GREGORY: Let me zero in on a key issue here. And that, of course, is the issue of how many troops. We know General McChrystal’s requesting 40,000 troops or perhaps more. General Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, weighed in on this topic and it was reported on this week, as you well know.

This is what The Washington Post said on Thursday, and I’ll read it for you: “The U.S. ambassador in Kabul sent two classified cables to Washington in the past week expressing deep concerns about sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until President Karzai’s government demonstrates that it is willing to tackle the corruption and mismanagement that has fueled the Taliban’s rise. The ambassador also has worried that sending tens of thousands of additional American troops would increase the Afghan government’s dependence on U.S. support at a time when its own security forces should be taking on more responsibility for fighting.”

It’s been reported that you actually support as many as 30,000 additional troops being sent to Afghanistan. Obviously, Ambassador Eikenberry reports up to you. What is your response to those cables and to that point of view?

CLINTON: Well, David, of course I’m not going to discuss any of the confidential advice that anyone has provided me or the president during this process. But I think what you obviously know is that there are many different views about how best to work with the Afghan government. And one of the points that we are stressing is that our goal is to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaida.

That’s why we’re in Afghanistan. It’s about our national security. We do want to see the Afghans be able to defend themselves, which means being able to stand up a security force that is capable of fighting the Taliban, which is a part of the syndicate of terror that was basically inspired, funded and directed by Al Qaida. But we’re going to expect more from the Afghan government going forward, and we’ve got some very specific asks that we will be making.

GREGORY: Do you believe that President Karzai is an effective partner, a reliable partner, and that sending more U.S. troops would actually be effective?

CLINTON: Well, again, I believe that he has his strengths and he has his weaknesses. Certainly, there are many improvements in Afghanistan over the last eight years. But there has not been the kind of open, transparent, accountable government that stood against corruption, that delivered services to people that I think the people of Afghanistan are seeking and that we would all like to see for them. And particularly, we have some work to do to assist and mentor and train on Afghan security force.

You know, what I hear all the time from people in Afghanistan and reports from others who are talking on a regular basis to people across the country, is that the basic attitude in Afghanistan is they do not want to see a return of the Taliban. That was a horrible period that they remember all too well. They do want security. They want a government that can protect them and can, you know, deliver at least services, whether it’s from the central government or the local district government. They also want to make sure that we help them create a security force that can then take over.

You know, as one person memorably said, “Look, we want your help to enable us to defend ourselves, and then we want you to go.” Well, that’s a pretty good summary of what we want to do. We want to get Al Qaida, we want to disrupt, dismantle and defeat those who attacked us, and we want to be able to give the Afghans the tools that they need to be able to defend themselves. We’re not interested in staying in Afghanistan. We’re not interested in any long-term, you know, presence there. We came to do a job, and unfortunately it wasn’t done over the last eight years.

GREGORY: Define the exit strategy, if that’s the president’s view.

CLINTON: I’m not going to define the president’s view and I’m not going to define the exit strategy from a mission that he hasn’t even yet announced to the American public. And I guess I would just put this in a larger context with making these points, David.

Number one, I have traveled consistently for the last nine months. I think I’ve been in more than 40 countries. I’ve met with countless leaders. I’ve done a lot of public diplomacy, getting out there, listening to people. I don’t think I can overstate how damaged our country was in the eyes of people around the world when President Obama took office.

And we’ve been working very hard to just get us back to a point where, you know, we can have the kind of open, candid conversations that lead to decisions being made that will benefit the United States and move us toward goals like, you know, more peaceful, prosperous outcomes for us and -- on many parts of the world.

Secondly, I think it’s important to underscore that we see the fight against Al Qaida and the syndicate of terror in the security interests of the United States. I think that kind of got lost the last eight years, with a lot of talk about how it wasn’t important to get bin Laden; that, you know, we were there for some other reason. No. It’s critical to get those who attacked us. That what -- that is what we are there for.

And what we are trying to do is to assess the best way forward so that we can go anywhere in the United States and anywhere in the world and say the same thing. You have to understand that we believe this syndicate of terror is a threat not just to the United States and our friends and allies, but to Pakistan, Afghanistan and many others.

GREGORY: Let me turn to the issue of China, where you and the president head next. The lead of a New York Times story out this morning about the president’s visit there says this: “When President Obama visits China for the first time on Sunday, he will, in may ways, be assuming the role of profligate spender coming to pay his respects to his banker.” With that as the backdrop, with China holding so much U.S. debt, $2 trillion worth, what is your assessment of U.S.-China relations?

CLINTON: Well, I think that our relations are on a positive, cooperative basis, with a comprehensive agenda that we are exploring together. Secretary Geithner and I co-chair the strategic and economic dialogue that we started this year because we didn’t want to just have an economic dialogue, we wanted to have a much more comprehensive engagement.

I think that there is evidence that there’s some positive results already. The Chinese have stood with us in the sanctions against North Korea. The Chinese are part of the P-5-plus-1 effort to try to engage Iran on its nuclear program. We are seeing signs of, you know, a cooperative relationship.

Now, let me go, though, to the premise of your question. When I ran for president, I started saying all the time, you know, that in effect we were seeding our fiscal sovereignty and that China was our banker. So it’s not news that that’s going to be in the papers on the eve of our visit to China. We have to get back to fiscal responsibility.

It -- it breaks my heart, David, that in 2001 we had a balanced budget and a surplus; and if we’d stayed on that path, we were heading toward eliminating our debt. Well, here we are eight years later, thanks to wars that weren’t paid for, thanks to financial collapses and so many other crises that we inherited. But the president understands clearly that, you know, we have to get back some control over time of our fiscal sovereignty.

GREGORY: Can I ask you something different about China, which is in light of the fact that China has a robust espionage policy against the United States, that they are cooperating with Iran in international affairs, are they hurting our national security interests?

CLINTON: Well, look, we are, we are well aware of not just one country, but many countries that try to gain advantage not just politically and strategically, but commercially vis-a-vis our own country. And we’re also well aware that many countries have relationships with those with whom we do not. But I think it’s more significant that, you know, China signed on to our P-5-plus-1 statement in New York. China has been at the table as we have been pushing Iran to fulfill what they agreed to in principle, to send out their low-enriched uranium so that it can be reprocessed elsewhere. So I think it’s a much more complicated and mixed story.

But, you know, I -- I travel on behalf of our country and I meet with leaders from all over the world ever day, and I have no illusions going into any meeting that anybody stands for America’s interests besides me. The task is to look for where we can find common ground and common interests. You know, it is significant that China signed on to the toughest sanctions ever against North Korea, because we worked very hard to make the case that those sanctions were not just something that America or South Korea or Japan wanted, but they were in the interests of China.

Similarly, in my conversations with Chinese leaders, I make it very clear that a nuclear-armed Iran will destabilize the region that produces the oil and the gas that China desperately needs and for which they have contracts. So why wouldn’t we try to stabilize the region by preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons in the first place?

So that’s what diplomacy’s about. I mean, you don’t -- you start from the premise of what are you -- what are your security interests, what is it that you wish to present; and how do you make the case that what you’re seeking is also in the interests of your counterpart.

GREGORY: Before I let you go, you know, whenever I get a chance to talk to you I like to ask you about a little bit of politics. And I know you’re over there in Singapore.

CLINTON: I’m out of politics, David. I’m out of politics.

GREGORY: You may not have heard, you -- you may not have heard, but Sarah Palin has a new book out, and in it she writes this: “Should Secretary Clinton and I ever sit down over a cup of coffee, I know that we would fundamentally disagree on many issues, but my hat is off to her hard work on the 2008 campaign trail.”

Is this somebody you’d like to sit and have coffee with, and do you plan to read the book? CLINTON: Well, I absolutely would look forward to having coffee. I’ve never met her. And I think it would be, you know, very interesting to sit down and talk with her. And I’ve got more than I could say grace over to read, but obviously in the next week there’s going to be a lot of attention paid to her book.

And I’m sure that, you know, I’ll see excerpts printed and, you know, snippets of interviews as I, you know, channel-surf in Singapore and in Shanghai and in Beijing. But, you know, I’m ready to have a cup of coffee. Maybe I can make a case on some of the issues that we disagree on.

GREGORY: So maybe there’s a summit meeting here. What do you think her brand of conservatism -- how -- how does that impact the Republican party?

CLINTON: I truly am out of commenting on politics. That is something that is not appropriate for the secretary of state. But I am an active observer and, you know, obviously these are questions that you and others are going to be asking. And I look forward to hearing what people answer.

GREGORY: It was worth a shot. Secretary Clinton...

(LAUGHTER)

... thank you very much.

CLINTON: Thanks, David. Good to talk to you.


Excerpt from transcript (Hillary Clinton's segment).


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World Food Summit Opens Amid Charges It May Be ‘Waste of Time’

By Karl Maier



Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- World leaders start a United Nations summit on food security in Rome today that international aid agencies say may be a “waste of time” because it won’t commit donors to provide more money to end world hunger.

A draft of the final declaration for the Nov. 16 to Nov. 18 “World Summit on Food Security,” which was obtained by Bloomberg News, promises no new financial commitments. Governments will “reinforce all our efforts” to halve the number of hungry by 2015, it says, and rich nations should reverse the decline of aid dedicated to agriculture, which fell from 19 percent in 1980 to 3.8 percent in 2006.

Jacques Diouf, who is hosting the meeting as director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, has urged governments to invest $44 billion a year to end chronic hunger suffered by 1.02 billion people and achieve “food security.” World hunger has continued to rise even with food prices falling from their peaks of last year, which coincided with FAO’s previous summit where donors pledged $11 billion in aid.

The lack of new funding requests prompted two aid agencies, Oxfam and ActionAid, to say on Nov. 12 the summit may be a “waste of time and money,” and that “governments are at risk of throwing away a great chance” to reduce the number of hungry. Francisco Sarmento, ActionAid’s food rights coordinator, called the declaration “just a rehash of old platitudes.”
Sixty heads of state and government plan to attend the meeting, which Pope Benedict XVI and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will address, FAO said.

Previous Crisis

Last year’s surge in food prices sparked riots in more than a dozen countries from Ivory Coast to Haiti, where the unrest prompted the dismissal of Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis.
Prices for wheat, which supplies about 20 percent of food calories consumed in the world, more than doubled between the start of 2007 and a peak in March 2008. Soaring energy prices boosted costs of fertilizer and transport while also lifting demand for grain-based alternative fuels like ethanol.

Today’s summit opens as the Rome-based UN agency predicts world cereal stocks will expand by about 4 million metric tons to 509 million tons next year, the highest level since 2002. Saudi Arabia has agreed to pay the $2.5 million cost of the gathering.

The Group of Eight nations, at a July summit in L’Aquila, Italy, approved $20 billion in aid over three years to help farmers in developing nations grow and sell food.

‘Summit Fatigue’

“My biggest concern is that we have to make sure that there is no summit fatigue,” Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior FAO economist, said in an interview. “If FAO felt there was a need for another summit, it is probably because it felt that the previous ones haven’t achieved what they were supposed to.”

Ertharin Cousin, U.S. Ambassador to the UN agencies in Rome, says the international community should use the summit as an opportunity to redefine how rich and poor countries work together to boost food production and cut poverty.

“When there is an opportunity, you don’t say ‘it is just another summit,’ you say ‘OK we are having this, how do we make it add value,’ and that was our goal,” the ambassador said in a Nov. 10 interview.

Developing countries must design their own plans and donor nations must work with them as partners, Cousin said.

“For us to suggest at the global level that we can have a patterned answer that is going to resolve all the issues on the entire continent of Africa of 54 countries is far too simplistic and very naïve,” she said.

Private Sector Role

At a FAO-organized meeting with food and agriculture companies, including Nestle, Unilever, and Bunge Ltd., in Milan on Nov. 12-13, private sector officials pledged to increase investment in farming in poor countries.

“We stand ready to invest meaningfully to help build national capacities in applied agriculture and food systems research and technology transfer in developing countries,” the companies said in a statement after the meeting.

Foreign direct investment in agriculture tripled to more than $3 billion since 2000, FAO said in report on its Web site.

Oxfam and ActionAid say the best way to reduce the number of hungry is to target resources on small farming families, who make up a third of the world’s population, FAO estimates.

Hunger Frontline

“Smallholder farmers, mostly women, are on the frontline in the fight against world poverty, hunger and climate change and we must not continue to ignore them,” said Frederic Mousseau of Oxfam.

While increased cereal production has slowed the rise in global food prices, Abbassian of FAO predicts future shortages and price hikes.

“The one certainty is that there will be a food crisis, and the reason is simple: we haven’t done much to prevent such a thing from happening,” he said. “We have talked a lot, we have committed a lot, but we haven’t really acted.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Karl Maier in Rome at kmaier2@bloomberg.net Last Updated: November 15, 2009 19:00 EST
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P.S.
1)Bolds and Highlights added.
2) Benedict XVI will probably issue more bulls about a New World Order with TEETH.
3) During all these Summits and conferences keep in mind:
Revelation 13:
16And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
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Ukraine, WHO And The Geopolitics Of Swine Flu Panic

[Editor's Note: Amazing. I no more than finish doing a radio show with Don Nicoloff on the evening of November 12, 2009 outing the role of pharmaceutical shill Dr Henry L. Niman in practically single-handedly hyping the Ukraine outbreak into the stratosphere and helping his pals in the pharmaceutical industry, the WHO, and the Ukraine Ministry of Health to grossly overstate the story and create an atmosphere of panic, than does William Engdahl come out with an article the very next day making the same case. Of even greater irony, I find this article posted at the top of Jeff Rense's web site IMMEDIATELY under the radio interviews and articles of Dr Henry Niman! If this isn't bizarre, I don't know what is. ...Ken Adachi


By F. William Engdahl, http://educate-yourself.org/vcd/engdahlukrainewhopanic13nov09.shtml

November 13, 2009
Ukraine, WHO And The Geopolitics Of Swine Flu Panic by F. William Engdahl (Nov. 14, 2009)

http://www.rense.com/general88/ukr33.htm



Latest reports of what is being called a deadly Swine Flu outbreak in Ukraine according to on sight reports appear to be a political concoction by a threatened government to avoid election defeat and possibly declare martial law. The details indicate how convenient the current WHO "Swine Flu" H1N1 "pandemic" scare is for regimes in trouble.

Worldwide media reports in recent days have painted a picture of Ukraine as being under the Black Plague or worse. One of the most egregious panic-mongers has been Pittsburgh Swine Flu "mapper" Dr Henry Niman who earlier falsely predicted H5N1 Avian Flu would mutate into a deadly human-to-human pandemic. It didn't.

Niman's map of the spread of alleged H1N1 Swine Flu since April has given WHO, the US Government and CNN and major media a convenient graphic to create the image of a new type of "bubonic plague" threatening mankind unless we react with massive doses of untested vaccines from such unscrupulous pharma bigs like GlaxoSmithKline or Novartis or Roche with its dangerous Tamiflu drugs.

Early on Niman reported about events in Ukraine: "The rapid rise in reported infections, hospitalizations, and deaths in the past few days raise concerns that the virus is transmitting very efficientlythe spike in fatalities and the frequency in hemorrhagic cases in Ukraine have raised concerns." Niman added the alarming note, "The number of infected patients has almost doubled to just under million, compared to the report two days ago."

That's pretty scary stuff. It conjures images of the reports of the Black Death in 1348 which is said to have killed up to 60% of Europe's population. Though that history has been challenged, the image as well as the equally terrifying if incorrect panic image of the so-called Spanish Flu of 1918, are being applied in Ukraine.

Reality check?

The WHO, the de facto criminal organization responsible for declaration of the H1N1 Pandemic last summer, allowing Governments like the USA and Ukraine to declare martial law and a national state of emergency, suspending all rights and imposing arrests and detentions, has validated the dubious Ukraine claims of out-of-control spread of Swine Flu. A WHO press statement November 3 declared, "Laboratory testing in Ukraine has confirmed pandemic H1N1 influenza virus in samples taken from patients in two of the most affected regions. As the pandemic virus has rapidly become the dominant influenza strain worldwide, it can be assumed that most cases of influenza in Ukraine are caused by the H1N1 virus."

The WHO added, "The outbreak in Ukraine may be indicative of how the virus can behave in the northern hemisphere during the winter season, particularly in health care settings typically found in Eastern Europe. Given the potential significance of this outbreak as an early warning signal, WHO commends the government of Ukraine for its transparent reporting and open sharing of samples." The samples have been sent to the WHO Mill Hill Influenza Reference Lab in London, not exactly inspiring confidence in a scientifically honest report given the record of UK health authorities in manipulating data to please the vaccine giants like GlaxoSmithKline.

WHO "strongly recommends early treatment with the antiviral drugs, oseltamivir or zanamivir, for patients who meet treatment criteria, even in the absence of a positive laboratory test confirming H1N1 infection." That means Tamiflu, the highly dangerous drug whose major shareholder includes former Pentagon head Don Rumsfeld. And it means GlaxoSmithKline, maker of the reportedly equally dangerous rival Relenza drug. The drugs produce precisely the symptoms of severe lung complications found in flu and in some cases have reportedly caused death.

Ukrainian election geopolitics

The bizarre developments in Ukraine over the past two weeks are being blamed inside the country on intense Ukrainian election politics. In four months national elections in Ukraine are due. Among rival candidates are Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her chief rival, Arseniy Yatseniuk.

Since Washington financed and organized the 2004 Orange Revolution that brought a pro-NATO Victor Yushchenko in as President, Ukraine politics has been a geopolitical tug-of war between Moscow and Washington. How the current political games around allegations of H1N1 panic play into that tug of war is not yet clear.

The recent speech in Warsaw by Vice President Joe Biden offering Poland and the Czech Republic a "new and improved" version of US anti-missile defense against Russia only four weeks after Obama announced the US was backing out of a controversial earlier missile defense plan for the two eastern European countries underscores the shambles of US strategic policy towards Russia. Russia has been quick to take advantage as might be expected, as a US missile shield on its borders, as I detail in Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order, gives the US a long-sought nuclear primacy over its only potential strategic rival on the planet. At that point the resistance of the rest of the world to incalculable or objectionable US policies, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia or wherever, becomes moot.

It's clear Moscow has been working quietly to bring Ukraine, an original part of Kiev Rus, and a strategically essential part of the Russian economy, back into a more friendly "NATO-free" relationship after five years of Orange Revolution chaos in Ukraine under Yushchenko. .

Yatseniuk, a 35 year old former banker and aide to Washington's darling, President Viktor Yushchenko, has charged that Tymoshenko is deliberately fostering unnecessary panic in order to impose martial law and suspend elections that she might well lose to Yatseniuk.

There definitely are political games going on by one or another faction in the economically devastated Ukraine. Oleksandr Bilovol, Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Health, claims the outbreak of flu cases in Ukraine has been essentially contained in 11 out of 25 Ukrainian regions, with the number of people allegedly stricken with H1N1 only 15% higher than figures reported in previous years. "Figures in other the regions are in line with 2007 and 2008," Bilovol said. As well the number of reported deaths is also in line with deaths annually attributed to ordinary influenza.

Tymoshenko declared the outbreak as the threat of the third level ­ the highest possible ­ to unlock spending of up to 3 billion hryvnias to combat the swine flu. Among measures imposed by the decree include shutting down schools and public gatherings for three weeks across Ukraine, with the government also considering introducing restrictions on movement of people between the regions.

Yatseniuk said the ban on public gatherings spreads fear and panic helping Tymoshenko to promote herself on television, while hindering other presidential candidates to campaign.

Yatseniuk is Tymoshenko's biggest rival as both compete for votes in western regions of Ukraine. He is perhaps the only candidate that may challenge Tymoshenko in the first round of vote on January 17, 2010 to enter the runoff with opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych.

Yatseniuk said the panic spread by the government helps overshadow issues politically damaging to Tymoshenko, including pedophile and the murder scandals involving Tymoshenko lawmakers, and Ukraine's dismal economic performance.

Prime Minister Tymoshenko, whatever the real facts of the case, is using the WHO Swine Flu panic scenario to the hilt. In a recent statement, she stated,

"We cannot relax even for a moment because the World Health Organization predicts two more waves of flu, including the bird flu, are expected in Ukraine. There is no alternative to vaccination. The entire world is going this way"

A day earlier she admitted she was not vaccinated and that she prefers "like all other people" plans to rely on garlic, onion and lemon as a way of preventing the flu.

Ukraine Parliament Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn accuses Tymoshenko as well, declaring, "You've organized the flu epidemic in order to avoid responsibility for not supplying heat to houses, schools, higher educational establishments, and kindergartens," he said in Parliament. And Orange Revolution President, Yushchenko has declared there was no reason for declaring an emergency in Ukraine. "There are no such reasons," Yushchenko said. "I am not a supporter of measures that freeze the country, restrict its operation to levels that is hard to justify."

Ihor Popov, Deputy Chief of Staff to Yushchenko, said that in case of emergency the election, which is due on Jan. 17, 2010, would have to be "rescheduled."

Germany joins Swine Flu corruption

Not only is the Ukrainian government apparently using fears of Swine Flu pandemic to change the domestic political calculus, and President Barack Obama using the fears to impose an unnecessary state of emergency. Now it comes out that the responsible German health authorities are caught in a corrupt conflict of interest with the very pharma giants profiting from government decisions on "anti-swine flu" vaccines.

The recent issue of the German weekly Der Spiegel, reports that members of the European Scientific Working Group on Influenza (ESWI), which claims to be an independent scientific advisory body advising EU member governments on policies regarding H1N1 influenza, is anything but independent. It's being financed by Big Pharma. ESWI claims it brings together scientific "key opinion leaders in influenza." However the sole financial backers are 10 pharmaceutical companies, including GlaxoSmithKline -- manufacturer of the German swine flu vaccine -- and Roche -- producer of the antiviral drug Tamiflu.

The group lists Walter Haas as one of its scientific advisors. Haas coordinates Germany's flu pandemic preparedness measures at the Robert-Koch-Institut (RKI), the federal institute for disease research. ESWI portrays itself as an independent group of scientists. But even the organization's own statute tells a different story, describing its role as advising politicians and health authorities on "the benefits and safety of influenza vaccines and antivirals" and initiating "a policy for antiviral provisions."

The degree of fraud, deceit, official coverup and outright criminal endangerment of the broad population by the current Swine Flu hysteria is seemingly without precedent.

F. William Engdahl



* F. William Engdahl is author of Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order. He may be contacted through his website, HYPERLINK"http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net" http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/.




Source: http://educate-yourself.org/vcd/engdahlukrainewhopanic13nov09.shtml


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WHO publishes plans to take over the whole of society in pandemic emergency


WHO has just released its “Whole of Society Pandemic readiness guidelines" first prepared in April 2009, the same month the swine flu virus mysteriously appeared in Mexico City, and revised in July 2009.

The plan outlines how WHO will take over a country’s essential services, including water and sanitation; fuel and energy; food; health care; telecommunications; finance; law and order; education; and transportation under the pretext of a pandemic emergency.

WHO claims even a moderate flu “pandemic” will “test the limits of resilience of nations, companies, and communities, depending on their capacity to respond” and require WHO to assume charge of government functions.

“National inter-ministerial pandemic preparedness committees should map out the central government’s roles, responsibilities, and chain of command and designate lead agencies,” says WHO, omitting to mention these committees answer to the UN health body.

WHO says the Ministries of Defence should consider what military assets should be brought to bear in the event of a pandemic and how to mobilize them, preparing for the use of the army to force quarantine and vaccinate people – perhaps after WHO has once more given a live bird flu virus to pharma companies to contaminate vaccine material as happened in Austria in February when Baxter nearly triggered a global pandemic.

Baxter executives sit on WHO’s key vaccine advisory board which recommended the toxic and untested swine flu jab for the world in the response to a flu milder than the seasonal one..

“Public health measures, such as quarantines and school and business closures

might place serious burdens on society and individual liberties, especially if they are

implemented on a wide scale. Governments should carefully weigh the risks and benefits of far-reaching restrictions on movement and implement these measures in a way that respects individual rights,” says WHO.

However, WHO also says: “Ministries of Justice should consider what legal processes could be suspended during the pandemic and make alternative plans to operate courts during pandemic.”
In France, leaked documents show that the Minister of Justice has ordered the suspension of the most basic rights, and people can be incarcerated for up to six months without having to appear before a judge in a pandemic emergency.

In addition, drills and exercises of the kind conducted by WHO in the Ukraine a month before the pneumonic plague appeared there are envisaged.

“6.5 Table-top and simulation exercises and drills at all levels are the best way to test,
validate, and improve pandemic preparedness plans. Tools developed by WHO or
international organizations and adapted to local circumstances may be useful for a quick
review to identify gaps during the pandemic response mode.”








P.S. Highlights adeed.
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SIN?


SIN
Look just below the white cap.
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Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry—historic step by divided Christian churches towards a common understanding



In 1982 the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches (WCC) published an historic theological statement titled "Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry" (BEM). The statement represents years of ecumenical study and dialogue on the the church's sacraments and offices of ministry. BEM explores what can be affirmed together by Christian churches of several (and historically separated) traditions—including churches of the Reformed, Lutheran, Methodist, Anglican and Orthodox families. It also recognizes that much more work remains before these traditions as they explore the many different accents in sacramental life and the understanding of ministry in the Body of Christ.

In 1985, General Synod received and committed itself to further study of the BEM statement. Both the BEM text and General Synod's response are available here, along with links to other WCC resources.


Links to Resources


Faith and Order pages [WCC website]





Source: http://www.ucc.org/ecumenical/baptism-eucharist-and.html

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Unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness


17For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.

18For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

19For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

20Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

21For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

22For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:

23But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;

24But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

25Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

26For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:

27But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

28And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

29That no flesh should glory in his presence.

30But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

31That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.


1 Corinthians 1:17-31.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Obama asks Congress to wait on Fort Hood

Let investigators wrap up, he urges as some lawmakers seek hearings



Nov. 14: In his weekly address, President Obama urges lawmakers to "resist the temptation" to turn the Fort Hood tragedy "into political theater."
NBC News Channel
updated 11:29 a.m. ET, Sat., Nov . 14, 2009

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Saturday urged Congress to hold off on any investigation of the Fort Hood rampage until federal law enforcement and military authorities have completed their probes into the shootings at the Texas Army post, which left 13 people dead.

On an eight-day Asia trip, Obama turned his attention home and pleaded for lawmakers to "resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into the political theater." He said those who died on the nation's largest Army post deserve justice, not political stagecraft.

"The stakes are far too high," Obama said in a video and Internet address released by the White House while the president he was flying from Tokyo to Singapore, where Pacific Rim countries were meeting.

Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, was charged on Thursday with the shooting spree at Fort Hood last week. Army investigators have said Hasan is the only suspect and could face additional charges.

Obama already had ordered a review of all intelligence related to Hasan and whether the information was properly shared and acted upon within government agencies. Several members of Congress, particularly Michigan Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, have also called for a full examination of what agencies knew about Hasan's contacts with a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen and others of concern to the U.S.

Hoekstra confirmed this week that government officials knew of about 10 to 20 e-mails between Hasan and the radical imam, beginning in December 2008.

A joint terrorism task force overseen by the FBI learned late last year of Hasan's repeated contact with the cleric, who encouraged Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. The FBI said the task force did not refer early information about Hasan to superiors because it concluded he wasn't linked to terrorism.

Lawmakers, however, already have announced they want their own investigations and were frustrated with what they view as a less-than-forthcoming administration.

Rep. Howard McKeon, R-Calif., said he wanted to go ahead with an investigation from the House Armed Services Committee, where he is the top Republican. He said he wanted an investigation that wouldn't compromise law enforcement or military investigations that were continuing on separate tracks.

In the Senate, Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, said his Homeland Security Committee was opening an investigation.

Obama said he was not opposed to hearings — eventually. But he strongly pressed lawmakers to hold off until the probes now under way are completed.

"There is an ongoing investigation into this terrible tragedy," Obama said. "That investigation will look at the motives of the alleged gunman, including his views and contacts."

"We must compile every piece of information that was known about the gunman, and we must learn what was done with that information. Once we have those facts, we must act upon them."



The geopolitics behind the phoney US war in Afghanistan

by F. William Engdahl*

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Obama Presidential agenda is how little anyone has questioned in the media or elsewhere why at all the United States Pentagon is committed to a military occupation of Afghanistan. There are two basic reasons, neither one of which can be admitted openly to the public at large.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


21 October 2009

From
Frankfurt (Germany)



Behind all the deceptive official debate over how many troops are needed to “win” the war in Afghanistan, whether another 30,000 is sufficient, or whether at least 200,000 are needed, the real purpose of US military presence in that pivotal Central Asian country is obscured.

Even during the 2008 Presidential campaign candidate Obama argued that Afghanistan not Iraq was where the US must wage war. His reason? Because he claimed, that was where the Al Qaeda organization was holed up and that was the “real” threat to US national security. The reasons behind US involvement in Afghanistan is quite another one.

The US military is in Afghanistan for two reasons. First to restore and control the world’s largest supply of opium for the world heroin markets and to use the drugs as a geopolitical weapon against opponents, especially Russia. That control of the Afghan drug market is essential for the liquidity of the bankrupt and corrupt Wall Street financial mafia.

Geopolitics of Afghan Opium

According even to an official UN report, opium production in Afghanistan has risen dramatically since the downfall of the Taliban in 2001. UNODC data shows more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past four growing seasons (2004-2007), than in any one year during Taliban rule. More land is now used for opium in Afghanistan, than for coca cultivation in Latin America. In 2007, 93% of the opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan. This is no accident.

It has been documented that Washington hand-picked the controversial Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun warlord from the Popalzai tribe, long in the CIA’s service, brought him back from exile in the USA, created a Hollywood mythology around his “courageous leadership of his people.” According to Afghan sources, Karzai is the Opium “Godfather” of Afghanistan today. There is apparently no accident that he was and is today still Washington’s preferred man in Kabul. Yet even with massive vote buying and fraud and intimidation, Karzai’s days could be ending as President.

The second reason the US military remains in Afghanistan long after the world has forgotten even who the mysterious Osama bin Laden and his alleged Al Qaeda terrorist organization is or even if they exist, is as a pretext to build a permanent US military strike force with a series of permanent US airbases across Afghanistan. The aim of those bases is not to eradicate any Al Qaeda cells that may have survived in the caves of Tora Bora, or to eradicate a mythical “Taliban” which at this point according to eyewitness reports is made up overwhelmingly of local ordinary Afghanis fighting to rid their land once more of occupier armies as they did in the 11980’s against the Russians.

The aim of the US bases in Afghanistan is to target and be able to strike at the two nations which today represent the only combined threat in the world today to an American global imperium, to America’s Full Spectrum Dominance as the Pentagon terms it.

The lost ‘Mandate of Heaven’

The problem for the US power elites around Wall Street and in Washington is the fact that they are now in the deepest financial crisis in their history. That crisis is clear to the entire world and the world is acting on a basis of self-survival. The US elites have lost what in Chinese imperial history is known as the Mandate of Heaven. That mandate is given a ruler or ruling elite provided they rule their people justly and fairly. When they rule tyrannically and as despots, oppressing and abusing their people, they lose that Mandate of Heaven.

If the powerful private wealthy elites that have controlled essential US financial and foreign policy for most of the past century or more ever had a “mandate of Heaven” they clearly have lost it. The domestic developments towards creation of an abusive police state with deprivation of Constitutional rights to its citizens, the arbitrary exercise of power by non elected officials such as Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson and now Tim Geithner, stealing trillion dollar sums from taxpayers without their consent in order to bailout the bankrupt biggest Wall Street banks, banks deemed “Too Big To Fail,” this all demonstrates to the world they have lost the mandate

In this situation, the US power elites are increasingly desperate to maintain their control of a global parasitical empire, called deceptively by their media machine, “globalization.” To hold that dominance it is essential that they be able to break up any emerging cooperation in the economic, energy or military realm between the two major powers of Eurasia that conceivably could pose a challenge to future US sole Superpower control—China in combination with Russia.

Each Eurasian power brings to the table essential contributions. China has the world’s most robust economy, a huge young and dynamic workforce, an educated middle class. Russia, whose economy has not recovered from the destructive end of the Soviet era and of the primitive looting during the Yeltsin era, still holds essential assets for the combination. Russia’s nuclear strike force and its military pose the only threat in the world today to US military dominance, even if it is largely a residue of the Cold War. The Russian military elites never gave up that potential.

As well Russia holds the world’s largest treasure of natural gas and vast reserves of oil urgently needed by China. The two powers are increasingly converging via a new organization they created in 2001 known as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). That includes as well as China and Russia, the largest Central Asia states Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

The purpose of the alleged US war against both Taliban and Al Qaeda is in reality to place its military strike force directly in the middle of the geographical space of this emerging SCO in Central Asia. Iran is a diversion. The main goal or target is Russia and China.

Officially, of course, Washington claims it has built its military presence inside Afghanistan since 2002 in order to protect a “fragile” Afghan democracy. It’s a curious argument given the reality of US military presence there.

In December 2004, during a visit to Kabul, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld finalized plans to build nine new bases in Afghanistan in the provinces of Helmand, Herat, Nimrouz, Balkh, Khost and Paktia. The nine are in addition to the three major US military bases already installed in the wake of its occupation of Afghanistan in winter of 2001-2002, ostensibly to isolate and eliminate the terror threat of Osama bin Laden.

The Pentagon built its first three bases at Bagram Air Field north of Kabul, the US’ main military logistics center; Kandahar Air Field, in southern Afghanistan; and Shindand Air Field in the western province of Herat. Shindand, the largest US base in Afghanistan, was constructed a mere 100 kilometers from the border of Iran, and within striking distance of Russia as well as China.

Afghanistan has historically been the heartland for the British-Russia Great Game, the struggle for control of Central Asia during the 19th and early 20th Centuries. British strategy then was to prevent Russia at all costs from controlling Afghanistan and thereby threatening Britain’s imperial crown jewel, India.

Afghanistan is similarly regarded by Pentagon planners as highly strategic. It is a platform from which US military power could directly threaten Russia and China, as well as Iran and other oil-rich Middle East lands. Little has changed geopolitically over more than a century of wars.

Afghanistan is in an extremely vital location, straddling South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Afghanistan also lies along a proposed oil pipeline route from the Caspian Sea oil fields to the Indian Ocean, where the US oil company, Unocal, along with Enron and Cheney’s Halliburton, had been in negotiations for exclusive pipeline rights to bring natural gas from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to Enron’s huge natural gas power plant at Dabhol near Mumbai. Karzai, before becoming puppet US president, had been a Unocal lobbyist.

Al Qaeda doesn’t exist as a threat

The truth of all this deception around the real purpose in Afghanistan becomes clear on a closer look at the alleged “Al Qaeda” threat in Afghanistan. According to author Erik Margolis, prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks, US intelligence was giving aid and support both to the Taliban and to Al Qaeda. Margolis claims that “The CIA was planning to use Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda to stir up Muslim Uighurs against Chinese rule, and Taliban against Russia’s Central Asian allies.” [1] The US clearly found other means of stirring up Muslim Uighurs against Beijing last July via its support for the World Uighur Congress. But the Al Qaeda “threat” remains the lynchpin of Obama US justification for his Afghan war buildup.

Now, however, the National Security Adviser to President Obama, former Marine Gen. James Jones has made a statement, conveniently buried by the friendly US media, about the estimated size of the present Al Qaeda danger in Afghanistan. Jones told Congress, “The al-Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies.”

That means that Al-Qaeda, for all practical purposes, does not exist in Afghanistan. Oops…

Even in neighboring Pakistan, the remnants of Al-Qaeda are scarcely to be found. The Wall Street Journal reports, “Hunted by US drones, beset by money problems and finding it tougher to lure young Arabs to the bleak mountains of Pakistan, al Qaeda is seeing its role shrink there and in Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports and Pakistan and U.S. officials. For Arab youths who are al Qaeda’s primary recruits, ‘it’s not romantic to be cold and hungry and hiding,’ said a senior U.S. official in South Asia.”

If we follow the statement to its logical consequence we must conclude then that the reason German soldiers are dying along with other NATO youth in the mountains of Afghanistan has nothing to do with “winning a war against terrorism.” Conveniently most media chooses to forget the fact that Al Qaeda to the extent it ever existed, was a creation in the 1980’s of the CIA, who recruited and trained radical muslims from across the Islamic world to wage war against Russian troops in Afghanistan as part of a strategy developed by Reagan’s CIA head Bill Casey and others to create a “new Vietnam” for the Soviet Union which would lead to a humiliating defeat for the Red Army and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union.

Now US NSC head Jones admits there is essentially no Al Qaeda anymore in Afghanistan. Perhaps it is time for a more honest debate from our political leaders about the true purpose of sending more young to die protecting the opium harvests of Afghanistan.



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[1] Washington is Playing a Deeper Game with China, by F. William Engdahl, Voltaire Network; 13 July 2009.
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Evangelist Alamo sentenced to 175 years on sex charges November 13, 2009 5:33 p.m. EST

November 13, 2009 5:33 p.m. EST


Tony Alamo has said, " I love children. I don't abuse them. Never have. Never will."


(CNN) -- Evangelist Tony Alamo is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison after an Arkansas judge sentenced him to 175 years Friday on charges that included taking minors across state lines for sex, according to prosecutors.

A jury convicted Alamo in July on 10 federal counts covering offenses that spanned 11 years and dated back to 1994, according to documents from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas.

Alamo, the 75-year-old founder and leader of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries, will serve the sentences on each count consecutively, for a total of 175 years in prison, prosecutors said.

In addition to his sentence, Alamo was fined $250,000, court documents showed.

His lawyer filed an appeal Friday.

Christopher Plumlee, assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, welcomed the sentence.

"Given the number of victims and the difficult type of testimony they had to provide in order to get to trial, it's gratifying for them to see him get this sentence," he said. "Not only did they entrust their lives to him, he did it in the name of God. And he betrayed their trust."

Authorities in September 2008 arrested Alamo, whose real name is Bernie Hoffman, and raided his 15-acre compound near Texarkana, Arkansas.

An indictment released in November 2008 accused Alamo of transporting five girls across state lines for sex. The criminal complaint included accounts from three girls, two of whom were 17 when the complaint was released last year, and one who was 14.

All three said Alamo sexually abused them.

In a phone interview last year with CNN, Alamo called the accusations a hoax.

"They're just trying to make our church look evil ... by saying I'm a pornographer. Saying that I rape little children. ... I love children. I don't abuse them. Never have. Never will."
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Political correctness holds reality hostage


Letter to the Editor
Saturday, November 14, 2009


Facts: One man stands accused of murdering 13 people and wounding 30 others. He is a U.S. Army officer and a Muslim. Tragic for the families -- but still murder.

After 9-11, did American Muslim leaders speak out against this destruction and murder of thousands by Muslims? Mostly silence.

The twisted rope of political correctness is unraveling when truth and facts enter into events and can no longer be ignored. In past wars with other nations, American Japanese and Germans fought gallantly alongside their compatriots -- for America.

Muslims are an exception. All facets and layers of the U.S. government have accommodated political correctness in eliminating "Islam" and "Muslim" from terrorist connections. Yet we all know they are Muslims.

Politically correct blindness may be involved in this case if the Army would send a Muslim Army officer, who resisted such assignment, to fight in a Muslim country. Should we be surprised by this Muslim's actions?

Fact: Some in the American Muslim community practice their own religious law -- Sharia -- which is not according to U.S. law. Two cases in point -- two Muslim families, two daughters. The fathers of both seek death for their daughters because they have besmirched the family honor by becoming "too Westernized." One father, in Peoria, Ariz., is accused of killing his daughter in a vehicular homicide. The other daughter, Rifqa Bary of Ohio, has so far avoided returning to her family and to her death. In America!

This is not the America we once thought of as a melting pot. We are now a multicultural and pluralistic society where the U.S. law and Constitution have been declared null and void. Islam's Sharia law may be America's future legal system.

I can't help but think that a time is coming when a letter stating facts will be considered hate speech and a crime. In America!

Bonnie Alba

Aiken, S.C.


From the Saturday, November 14, 2009 edition of the Augusta Chronicle