http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=Vatican+City+State+(Holy+See) Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:40:09 -0400 Liveleak http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2/logo.gif http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=Vatican+City+State+(Holy+See) Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:07:01 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4d3_1365627702 firehot Vatican City Listeni/'vaet http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4d3_1365627702 firehot Vatican City Explained Vatican city pope italy rome catholic roman christian jesus christ pope coporate nation religion muslim Wed, 24 Apr 2013 20:29:29 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ad5_1366849628 Vegas Street Prophet Nuked Underground Base Causing Massive Sinkhole In Virginia? Sunday, September 18, 2011 16:15 % of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents. by Zen Gardner Oh boy. Just when you think you've seen it all. I was just talking to my wife about the Benjamin Fulford and now David Wilcock claim that the Virginia earthquake was the nuking of two underground bases. I know, it's wild but the story has legs apparently. Actually, Fulford's claims that secretive "white hats" are fighting the badass "black hats" is a pretty cool thought. Here's what David Wilcock has to say: NUCLEAR STRIKES AGAINST UNDERGROUND BASES (Wilcock) Recently, these sources informed him (Fulford) that the earthquakes that occurred in Colorado and the Washington DC area, surrounding August 22nd and 23rd, were, in fact, apparently nuclear strikes against underground military facilities. have been built by the US government, ostensibly since the early 1960s, at the cost of trillions of dollars of undocumented taxpayer money that is going into these "black projects." ...I was absolutely astonished when I started to ask around and found out that everyone I know, with one exception who probably wasn't on a need-to-know basis, confirmed that this attack did happen. If you haven't understood the gravity or the implications of what I'm telling you right now, it's important to point out. These guys never imagined that these underground facilities could have been attacked. Ever. So what has happened here is a seismic shift in this insider war-that is arguably as significant as the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. And in fact, it may very well be the workings of the Universe, in terms of karma, that the people responsible for those attacks have now had it happen to them. See full article HERE Pretty cool if true. Then I ran into THIS story: Strafford - A massive hole in the ground behind two houses along Brush Everard St. inside the Austin Ridge subdivision in Stafford is threatening to swallow the two homes near it. ( Source ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u20Y1NYo9Bc OK, let's see where Stafford, Virginia is: Now let's see where the quake happened: Now THAT should get you wondering.... Pretty dang close. Of course it could be natural underground erosion triggered by the quake...but maybe not. Should be interesting to see how this plays out. Other anomalies The quake seemed to have a lot of weird characteristics, but then again they haven't had a quake of that intensity in that region for some time. In addition, the rock strata are quite different from other areas of the US and is known to make quakes travel much further. Activist Post ran a compelling piece entitled 6 Strange Anomalies With The Virginia Earthquake that mentions among other oddities the strange location, shallow depth and weird seismograph it produced. It also apparently simultaneously knocked Hurricane Irene off-course, similar to how hurricane Erin approaching NYC on 9/11 was seemingly turned out to sea during the "magical" pulverization of the twin towers. You can watch it here: Very strange indeed. Underground nuke? HAARP? Directed energy weapons? "Something's happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear." Keep on wondering...cuz man, we live in freaky times! Love, Zen NEW: Were NORAD and Secret Gov't Bases The Nuke/Quake Targets? http://www.zengardner.com http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2011/09/nuked-underground-base-causing-massive-sinkhole-in-virginia-1113527.html Massive Sinkhole In Virginia: Video Saturday, September 17, 2011 5:21 % of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents. Strafford - A massive hole in the ground behind two houses along Brush Everard St. inside the Austin Ridge subdivision in Stafford is threatening to swallow the two homes near it. The Stafford County Fire Marshall has ordered the families of the house stay out until further notice, and the site of the dangerous hole has been fenced off to everyone. According to neighbors the hole showed up on Saturday and has progressively been getting deeper. On Tuesday neighbors said the hole was more than 12 feet deep and it has already swallowed the two back yards of the homes near it. http://bcove.me/2c4vcna3 Strafford -- A massive hole in the ground behind two houses along Brush Everard St. inside the Austin Ridge subdivision in Stafford is threatening to swallow the two homes near it. The Stafford County Fire Marshall has ordered the families of the house stay out until further notice, and the site of the dangerous hole has been fenced off to everyone. According to neighbors the hole showed up on Saturday and has progressively been getting deeper. On Tuesday neighbors said the hole was more than 12 feet deep and it has already swallowed the two back yards of the homes near it. Sinkhole in Stafford, Virginia. forces families out of their homes Katrina Barnes who lives in one of the two condemned houses said , "it was still moving so fast that they were concerned about the structure and our well being, and every day since we've been coming by it's been getting deeper and deeper." Some neighbors told 9News they believe the recent earthquake, hurricane, and non-stop rains in the Washington area have irritated what they describe as an already weak foundation due to faulty construction. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/234988-US-Sinkhole-In-Stafford-Virginia-Threatens-Homes Two Underground Cities Destroyed On 8-23-2011? Saturday, September 17, 2011 12:28 % of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents. TWO HUGE underground cities were destroyed on August 23rd -which may be seen by historians as the critical moment in which the war was won. 80 different countries have now formed an alliance against the Old World Order/Nazi-esque cabal. From DAVID WILCOCK , Friday, 16 September 2011. "On Wednesday, September 14th, 2011, I interviewed one of the most interesting and controversial figures on Earth. The information in this interview has the potential to rock the world. If the story is true, it already has... The full, unabridged transcript of this interview follows-and you can download and listen to it here . Headlines and extra comments have been added to enhance readability and context for the interview. The best way to get you started on this amazing journey is just to hit the ground running. So here we go... Benjamin Fulford: 30 Years as a Financial Journalist Benjamin Fulford Hi there. This is David Wilcock, and you're listening to another Divine Cosmos audioblog exclusive interview with Benjamin Fulford. Fulford has worked for Forbes Magazine as the editor for the Asia-Pacific region. People have tried to attack his credibility on this before, but it is documented. I have checked the references myself. He was mentioned by Stephen Colbert in one show discussing the so-called Illuminati. I will also say that Fulford has contact with an incredible number of different sources. He does seem to back up who these sources as much as humanly possible. NUCLEAR STRIKES AGAINST UNDERGROUND BASES Recently, these sources informed him that the earthquakes that occurred in Colorado and the Washington DC area, surrounding August 22nd and 23rd, were, in fact, apparently nuclear strikes against underground military facilities. have been built by the US government, ostensibly since the early 1960s, at the cost of trillions of dollars of undocumented taxpayer money that is going into these "black projects." The reason why I contacted Benjamin Fulford is I had read this on his blog Then I started to contact my own sources, which have been built up over being a public figure on the Internet since 1999-and gaining the trust of many people in various classified programs. I was absolutely astonished when I started to ask around and found out that everyone I know, with one exception who probably wasn't on a need-to-know basis, confirmed that this attack did happen. THEY NEVER IMAGINED IT COULD HAPPEN Now again. I'm going to turn it over to Ben in just a second. One more setup thing I want to say here is this. If you haven't understood the gravity or the implications of what I'm telling you right now, it's important to point out. These guys never imagined that these underground facilities could have been attacked. Ever. So what has happened here is a seismic shift in this insider war-that is arguably as significant as the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. And in fact, it may very well be the workings of the Universe, in terms of karma, that the people responsible for those attacks have now had it happen to them. CODE RED-ON A NEED-TO-KNOW BASIS There is undeniable significance in this happening. I was astonished at the depth of detail I have been able to get from my own sources about what happened. I have been told that the situation is now considered Code Red. However, it is also being withheld from most of the people in these programs. It's on a need-to-know basis. Even the sources I am in contact with, all except for one, did not even have the need-to-know basis high enough to know why this happened. Or who was responsible for it! MINING FOR INFORMATION So the only thing we know is that the powers that were, as I like to call them, have been putting out stories on the Internet about this event. What they're actually doing is they are trying to mine for information. They want to find out who knows what. And I am astonished that my own sources lack the knowledge that Benjamin Fulford has been putting out as to who is responsible for this... and why . UP TO SIXTY THOUSAND DEATHS-AND NO INSIDER IS SAFE My intelligence suggests it is possible that as many as 30,000 people were in each of these two underground cities at the time that went off. So we're talking about the potential of 60,000 deaths. We're also talking about the potential that anyone else working for these programs who is in one of these facilities, which could either be underground or possibly off-world, such as in a space station, on the Moon or elsewhere... is now totally alone and unguarded. They are not going to be protected. They are not safe. And their superiors are not informing them of the risk they are now in by being in those locations. SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT I want to set the record straight. I want to get the man to talk to you, the public, and hear, firsthand, what the hell is going on, who did this, why did they do this, and what are the implications. So Ben, that's my intro. Let's hear from you now. I'm very interested in this. BRETTON WOODS SET THE STAGE BF: There has been a very esoteric battle over control of the dollar printing machine for the global financial system. What happened was that at the end of World War II, at the Bretton Woods accords of 1944, Britain, France and the US were given the right to control the world's currency. They were supposed to have a Marshall Plan to develop Africa and Asia as well as Europe. They reneged on their promise, and instead started to fake a "cold war" with the Soviet Union-which was designed to support the military industries. 77 NON-ALIGNED NATIONS SET UP GLOBAL COLLATERAL ACCOUNTS Then, the group of non-aligned nations-77 nations-pooled their assets... all their wealth, their gold and other valuables... and set up some global collateral accounts. They wanted to use this money to start the Marshall Plans for Asia and Africa. KENNEDY TRIED TO END THE FED-AND THE COLD WAR President Kennedy agreed to go along with this after he found out that there was a group that was trying to very seriously get the Soviet Union and the United States to annihilate each other. This was the Cuban Missile Crisis. The historical accord is called the Hilton Green Memorial. This is available to any serious researcher in financial history. President Sukarno was the signatory for the countries. He was going to give Kennedy-they gave Kennedy 140,000 tons of gold. Kennedy passed a law allowing Congress, not the Federal Reserve Board, to create dollars Kennedy also said, "Let's go to the Moon, instead of this cold war, to stimulate industry. Let's develop the poor countries and let's develop space instead of having this fake Cold War." KENNEDY WAS ASSASSINATED-AND THE CLOCK RAN OUT IN 1994 Kennedy did put out a lot of money, but he was assassinated. As you know, the public space program just disappeared in the 1970s when that funding ran out, and just stopped completely. President Sukarno was hounded from office. The international agreement that left Britain, France and the United States in charge of the world's financial system expired in 1994. That is why they wound down the Soviet Union. After 1994, there was no accord at the very top level of the world's financial system about who would be in charge next. There was a split in the ranks. CHINA AND NON-ALIGNED NATIONS WANTED FINANCIAL CONTROL The Chinese and the non-aligned nations were pressuring the oligarchs who had been running things since World War II to hand over control of the dollar printing press-the financial system-but they were reluctant. The international court of justice at the Hague was sued by the Chinese over gold that the Federal Reserve Board owners sold them. THE FED HAD TO PAY UP ON SEPTEMBER 12, 2001 The Federal Reserve Board owners lost this lawsuit, and they were told to hand over the gold... starting on September 12, 2001. Instead, on September 11th, 2001, as you all know, they gave the world the finger and started this huge, fake, global war on terror. It was part of an attempt by the fascist groups of World War II. THEY WANTED GLOBAL FASCISM-AND 90% FEWER PEOPLE The Nazis and their fascist sympathizers in the US, and England, and Italy, with a group that can be found within the military, in Congress, and in the Vatican, were going to set up a global fascist government. At the same time, they had this belief that there were too many people. Especially too many, according to them, inferior brown-type people. They wanted to reduce the world's population by 90 percent. DW: This is documented? BF: Yes, it's very well documented. I was invited to join this group by Heizo Takanaka, who was the Japanese finance minister for five years. I have a tape recording of this invitation to prove it. THEY WANTED TO HIDE UNDERGROUND AFTER NUKING THE PLANET They were planning to hide in these underground bases after they set off a nuclear holocaust. The original plan was to start a nuclear war between Iran and Israel, and use that as an excuse to set up martial law in the G7 countries-and then prepare for war against China. RUSSIA AND CHINA CUT THEM OFF This plan fell apart when Russia kicked them out-and Putin re-asserted independence for Russia. That removed their control-the oil industry-and made that whole plan not work. The Chinese also stopped buying US treasuries for a while to put pressure on this group. THEY OFFERED TO PARTNER WITH CHINA IN WORLD DICTATORSHIP So they switched strategies. Instead, they tried to suck up to China and offer them a world dictatorship... in partnership with this group. That's why in public you saw Obama visit China in 2009 and offer a "G2" . This is how you can confirm this. THEY ARE BEING CUT OFF-AND ARE RUNNING OUT OF MONEY In any case, this group that carried out the 9/11 attacks has been under increasing pressure, and under isolation, at the very highest levels. They are running out of money. They are being cut off. WHAT ABOUT THE "MISSING" 2.3 TRILLION DOLLARS? DW: Ben, right before September 11th, a lot of people forgot about this. Donald Rumsfeld goes on national television and says that they "lost" 2.3 trillion dollars from the Pentagon over the previous decade. Does that have anything to do with this gold thing you are talking about? BF: Oh yeah. FINANCING "MURDER INCORPORATED" That money was used to finance Blackwater-a private army not controlled by the Pentagon. The Pentagon would not let themselves be controlled by this cabal. So they were trying to do what the Nazis did in World War II-create an elite SS corps that could bully the regular military. That was where that money went to, as far as my sources are concerned. DW: Wow. BF: In any case, we were contacted by smugglers, drug smugglers... DW: Could you just say who "We" is, for a minute? THE WHITE DRAGON SOCIETY-MANY GROUPS COLLABORATING BF: "We" is a group of us who are involved in the fight to overthrow this cabal. It includes members of the CIA, the Pentagon, the agencies, and various , including Asian secret societies. We use the name White Dragon. There is another group that calls themselves the White Hats. We all have the same goal, which is to get this insane group of people out of power. WHY FULFORD? DW: Some of the criticism I have seen from people on the Internet is, "If this group is so vast and so powerful to fight this cabal, why is Benjamin Fulford the only one talking about this?" BF: These people like their secrecy-and I am a spokesperson. When you go to the White House, there is only one voice they give to the public. They prefer to work behind the scenes. You've got to realize we're dealing in a world where they use assassination like most of us use tissue papers. DW: Sure. IT IS VERY DANGEROUS TO STAND AGAINST THE CABAL BF: I've had about six murder attempts myself. One of my colleagues, a CIA guy, was recently poisoned with ricin by these guys. Another one of our members in Switzerland has guards around his house, and they just shot someone last week near his house who was trying to kill him. Before that, they found a Mafioso by the name of Vincenzo Mazzamaro who had a gun and a sophisticated lock-picking device, and was trying to get into his place. Another one of us had a concrete bag miss him by a couple of inches last week. DW: Wow. BF: We're dealing with some very dangerous people. That's why there is a need for secrecy. FULFORD IS BILINGUAL AND HIGH PROFILE IN ASIA THANKS TO FORBES DW: I've also speculated You are in Japan, and you're a "gaijin" -a foreigner, a white person. You have the background of being a distinguished editor for Forbes Magazine. You are bilingual, you do speak fluent Japanese. There are several videos you have released now that show that. This might have been part of what gave you this platform to give these Asian secret societies a voice. Would you say that is correct? WHY WASN'T JAPAN USING ITS MONEY TO HEAL THE PLANET? BF: What happened in my case was that I asked a very simple and obvious question when I was at Forbes. The Japanese people-that includes both public and the private sector-have about 8 trillion dollars worth of assets overseas. DW: Eight trillion dollars? BF: Yeah. That's in the public record. You can go to the finance ministry homepage and the numbers are there. According to the UN development report, you need 400 billion to stop environmental destruction and 200 billion to end poverty. So I'm saying, "Hey, you guys, why don't you end poverty and stop environmental destruction?" DW: Okay, hold on, hold on. BF: It's a no-brainer! 400 BILLION? THAT'S IT? DW: 400 billion is all it takes to completely stop environmental destruction? How is that possible? BF: That's an annual budget. This is the UN development report. You'd have to go through their experts and find out how they did those numbers. DW: Okay. But that's public domain. So the eight trillion is vastly more than what it would take to end poverty and stop environmental destruction. BF: Yeah. JAPANESE REVENUE DRAINED FROM RECONSTRUCTION DEBTS These contracts were reinforced with bribery, blackmail, death threats and assassinations of Japanese government officials who didn't agree.] 90 PERCENT OF WORLD SAVINGS ABSORBED BY US MILITARY BF: The other thing is that if you look at the statistics, you realize that 90 percent of the world's savings was being sucked out of the system by the US military-industrial complex. DW: How do you prove that? BF: I was a financial journalist for 25 years. This is all public-record stuff. DW: Ninety percent of the US budget is going to the military. BF: There's an easy way to check. Just look at the US external trade deficit and compare it to the US military budget. You'll find an amazing similarity over the years. DW: (Laughs) BF: That's for the simple reason that the military does not produce tradable goods. They were a parasitic entity on the world economy. WHY NOT HEAL THE WORLD AND COLONIZE SPACE? What I said was simply, "Look. Why don't you just stop paying for this military?" I told this to the Asians, "..and instead ask them to and set them to exploring space?" It's the sort of thing that's just common sense. DW: Okay, Ben, your audio just cut out on that last sentence. BF: I think that is common sense. DW: Okay. ASSASSINATION ORDERS BF: What happened was that an assassination order came out for me. The South Korean secret police informed the Chinese that there was an order to have me killed. You can check. My colleague Paul Klebnikov, the Moscow bureau chief for Forbes Magazine, was shot nine times outside of his apartment in Moscow. He was still alive when the ambulance came an hour later. He got to the hospital and he was put in the hospital elevator. The elevator was stopped for eight minutes-and he died in the elevator. He was investigating a member of this same group that I was. He was investigating Boris Berezovsky, one of the oil tycoons. I was investigating Heizo Takenaka-but they all go back to the same cabal. DW: Right. THE WAR ON TERROR WAS OBVIOUSLY A FAKE BF: In any case, the South Koreans told the Chinese that an assassination order was out for me. This was because of my publicly calling for the Asians to stop spending their savings on this vast military machine. You have got to remember, during the Cold War they actually had this anti-Communism excuse. But, the War on Terror was so obviously fake that it was just ridiculous to anybody who does any serious research or investigation. DW: Right. CHINESE SECRET SOCIETY OFFERS PROTECTION BF: I got invited to join a Chinese secret society that offered me protection from this assassination order-and that's how I found myself in this secret world of financial power. The group that offered me protection was the group that was behind the non-aligned nations. It crosses borders. If you think in terms of countries, you don't understand how these people work. They have big factions in China, in the US and in Europe-both against and for them. It crosses borders. If you think in terms of nation-states, you won't understand how these groups work. CHINESE FIGHT FINANCIAL BATTLE BY BUYING REAL ASSETS In any case, a financial battle started. There were many, many public salvos. In 2006, the Chinese wanted to use their dollars to do something other than buy Treasuries. They tried to buy the oil company Unocal. Congress passed a law saying they could not. So then they took their dollars and they went to Africa, South America and everywhere, and started spending them on real things-like mines and agricultural land and commodities. Not virtual things-like fancy and impossible to understand derivatives products, which are basically con jobs. DW: Ponzi schemes. Yeah. BF: Yeah. FOOD AND OIL PRICES INCREASED BY CABAL The other group tried to retaliate by jacking up food and oil prices. Remember there were hunger riots in 33 countries at one point. DW: Yeah. BF: It was an economist at the World Bank who pointed out the reason people were going hungry was that they were paying farmers to grow oil instead of food. That put an end to that. 2008 LEHMAN SHOCK WAS ASIAN COUNTER-ATTACK Then there was a counter-attack. The were told that we would no longer accept dollars printed within the United States. That's what you know of as the Lehman crisis. 76 PERCENT DROP IN JAPANESE CAR EXPORTS TO THE US You can check this in the public record. If you look at Japanese export statistics, from October or November 2008, after the Lehman shock, you will see something like a 76 percent year-to-year drop in Japanese car exports to the US. This was the Japanese and other people saying, "You can no longer use paper to buy stuff from the rest of the world. You have to trade with real things." Of course, your public was not let in on this. DW: That's where I think people's brain is going to get busted. Nobody publicly knows that this Lehman shock had anything to do with Asia. BF: Yeah, I know. The way you can check it is to look at the export-import statistics after the Lehman shock. The other way to check it is to look at the Baltic Dry Index. That's the price of shipping. 90 PERCENT DROP IN THE PRICE OF SHIPPING You will see that the price of shipping dropped 90 percent right after the Lehman shock. DW: Wow. BF: That's because the ships were no longer going to the US, full of stuff, and then leaving empty . These are ways people can verify what I'm saying with public-record information. DW: Good. Okay. NORWAY SHOOTING WAS AN ATTEMPT TO EXTORT 1.5 TRILLION BF: Getting back to the blowing up of the underground bases, this group was being cut off more and more at a high level, and they were running out of money. They were trying to extort money from various countries. They killed the youth group of the ruling party in Norway-that was the Norway attacks-because they were trying to extort the 1.5 trillion-dollar oil fund the Norwegian government controls. They were saying, "Hey, we're going to kill you if you don't hand over your money." DW: just desperately trying to find cash. BF: Yeah. They invaded Libya to take over their oil fields, because the Libyans told them, "We're not going to give you oil for your paper anymore." DW: Hmmm. NUCLEAR BOMB SMUGGLED INTO JAPAN WITH 70 KILOS OF MARIJUANA BF: In the case of Japan, again, I have sources who are actually drug smugglers. They have been selling drugs in Japan for 70 years. These are CIA types. The CIA drug-smuggling division. They told me that a nuclear bomb had been brought in with their latest shipment of drugs. This was a 70-kilo shipment of adulterated Thai marijuana that was brought in through Okinawa. They found a nuclear bomb mixed in with it. And of course, with these guys, smuggling drugs is one thing, but smuggling nuclear weapons is another. They told the police, and they told me. I made it public. They followed the bomb as far as the North Korean citizens' association headquarters in Tokyo. FOUR NUKES STOLEN FROM THE RUSSIAN SUB 'KURSK' I have independent confirmation from a Mr. Paul Lane, of Pentagon military intelligence-he was a part of the Men Who Stare At Goats group-that four nuclear weapons were stolen from the Russian submarine Kursk after it sank. I think it was in 2000 or something. It was one of those nuclear weapons that was smuggled in . DW: Stolen by who, though? BF: This is the Odessa group. The Nazi group. The one that was trying to set up a fascist world government-a Fourth Reich. DW: Okay. How did they get to the Kursk to get these nukes out? BF: I don't know the technical details, but they have submarine bases in various parts of the world. I assume it was from one of these submarine bases. WHY STEAL NUKES IF YOU CAN BUILD YOUR OWN? DW: The next question, then, would be why would they need to get it from the Kursk if they are powerful enough to make their own? BF: The public nuclear devices are under strict safety protocols. You can't just take them and then blow them up somewhere. There are too many people involved in the chain of command. They tried to do that. MINOT AIR FORCE BASE INCIDENT: FAILED SMUGGLING ATTEMPT There were incidents where just barely stopped a nuclear... DW: Right. Like the Minot Air Force Base incident. BF: Yeah, exactly. DW: The soldiers did a mutiny and would not commit this "Broken Arrow" . That's what they called it in code terms. BF: There you go. What they needed was some nuclear weapons that were not under any official government control. DW: Okay. JAPANESE SHIP DRILLING TEN KILOMETERS AT EXACT EPICENTER BF: There was a Japanese drilling ship known as the Chikuyu Maru that can drill ten kilometers into the seabed. They were drilling at the exact epicenter of the earthquake. We had an article from January 17th in a local paper saying they were drilling there. They put the bomb in the seabed. HAND OVER THE CASH-OR TOKYO WILL BE NEXT This was an attempt to extort money, through terror, from the Japanese. DW: So they warned Japan that they put the nuke in before they asked for money? BF: No, they asked for money afterwards. DW: Oh, wow. BF: "If you don't do it, next it's Mount Fuji." DW: For people who don't know, Fujiyama is right around Tokyo, which is the largest population center of Japan. BF: Yes. That's right. DW: So basically they are saying they would nuke Tokyo, which is how many million people? Thirty or forty million? BF: Thirty million or so. DW: Right. Okay. JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER HANDED OVER 20 BILLION BF: The Japanese prime minister Kan originally was so cowardly, he just said, "Oh yeah, all right, we'll sign over money." He handed over something like two trillion yen, which is about 20 billion dollars. And they gave him a big bribe. MAJOR BATTLE WAS TRIGGERED IN JAPAN TO REMOVE THE CABAL The evidence that this was not a natural disaster began piling up. The result has been a battle here in Japan to remove these people from control. WHY DO YOU THINK THIS WAS NOT A NATURAL EARTHQUAKE? DW: Some people might not realize there is any evidence that Fukushima was not a natural disaster. Could you just briefly touch on a couple of points that you think are the most significant? BF: If you look at the seismic chart, you will see a sudden explosion. It's not like a natural earthquake, where you have pre-shocks. It was just suddenly huge, and then it started fading down. UNDERGROUND BASE EXPLOSIONS ALSO STARTED BIG It was the same with the underground bases. If you look at a seismic chart, it will look like a big line all of a sudden appearing, and then a smaller line afterwards. There is no buildup, as you would find in a natural earthquake. PLUTONIUM PUT IN FUKUSHIMA A MONTH BEFORE THE ATTACK There is plenty of evidence. The governor of Fukushima province told me they overruled him and put plutonium in reactor number 3. one month before the tsunami incident. DW: Only a month before? BF: Yeah. HOUSING COMPANY'S STOCK SHOT UP A MONTH BEFORE THE ATTACK And then we had a company called Higashi Nippon House. They make cheap housing in northeastern Japan. Their stock was shooting up in the month before the attack. You've got to remember: Japan has an aging and shrinking population. It doesn't make sense for a cheap housing company's stock price to go shooting up like that-unless there was something in the works. POSSIBLE NUCLEAR ATTACK THREATENED TWO DAYS BEFORE The other thing is that a group of us recorded a conversation between Kirk Campbell, who is your deputy foreign minister for Asia, and Japanese power broker Ichiro Ozawa-on March 9, 2011. In this conversation, Campbell asked Ozawa not to split the ruling party and force the formation of a new government. They said they would give him the rights to zeolite in Fukushima province. Zeolite is used to clean up radioactive waste. This conversation was recorded on March 9th-two days before the tsunami attack. NETANYAHU PERSONALLY THREATENED NEW NUCLEAR DISASTERS The other point a man by the name of Takemasa Kawase, a Japanese military intelligence officer. subsequently told me that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu phoned Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan after the attack. said that they would cause other nuclear disasters around Japan if they did not start handing over the money. The chief Mossad agent in Japan, by the way, is a man named Michael Green. He's a nasty piece of work, and we're going to remove him from this country soon. DW: One question, though. BF: Yeah, but I want to... DW: OK, go ahead. ISRAELI COMPANY WAS IN CHARGE OF SECURITY AT FUKUSHIMA BF: In order to confirm what this guy told me, I waned to check-and there was an Israeli company that was in charge of security at the Japanese nuclear plant. DW: Oh my gosh! BF: So I was able to independently confirm that through other sources. This is publicly available information-who was in charge of security at Fukushima. It was an Israeli company. Now go on. What was your question? IS ISRAEL A MEMBER OF THE CABAL? DW: First, then, do you believe that Israel is tied in with this cabal you keep mentioning, in some way? BF: Not Israel, but a clique at the top of the Israeli government, yes. Most Israelis I consider to be chumps or victims of these people. THE CABAL INTENDED TO SACRIFICE THE ISRAELI PEOPLE For example the cousin of the Shah of Iran, among others, came to us with information that George Bush and his group had given twelve neutron bombs to the government of Iran. missiles with neutron bombs on them. Remember-neutron bombs kill people, but leave buildings intact. DW: Well, that's not only treasonous, it sounds crazy. BF: It is! IRANIANS TRIED TO GET RID OF THEM-BUT THEY WERE REFUSED The Iranians said "We don't want them." They put them at the Iraqi border and asked President Obama to please take them off their hands. Obama just refused to listen. DW: Wow. "Pentagon White Hats" intend to restore constitutional government to the US after overthrowing the cabal, and want to keep the elected president in power as this happens. I support this decision, and feel it is the best move to make in order to keep the public calm as this event finally comes to pass. I would be cautious in blaming Obama personally for this alleged decision not to remove nukes from Iran without gaining additional information first. The president is the intended fall-guy to draw attention away from the cabal conspirators behind the scenes. His true power is limited. Even if he did want to retrieve the weapons, he may not have had any choice. It may also have been seen as a trap-far too dangerous to risk the lives of top personnel on what could easily have been a suicide mission.] MOST ISRAELIS WOULD BE HORRIFIED IF THEY KNEW THE TRUTH BF: Okay? And again, people at the higher level know this is true. In other words, they were going to offer the people of Israel as a kind of ritual sacrifice. So the Israelis were victims. A lot of them were fooled with Jewish superiority talk, which is really the same as Aryan superiority talk-only you substitute Jew for Aryan. They were chumps. Most of the Israelis don't know what is going on, and they would be appalled to hear it. It's about a cabal that is above all that. DW: And it has no religious affiliation. THEY ARE ASSOCIATED WITH JUDAISM / CHRISTIANITY / ISLAM BF: Well, they are associated with the Abrahamistic religions. Let's put it that way. DW: Going back to Babylon, Mesopotamia, all the way back there? BF: Well, at least going back to the time of the Caesars. RELIGION AND FASCISM Let's remember the word "religion." The etymology of the word "religion" is religare in Latin, which means to re-bind. What do you re-bind it into? A fascio. What is a fascio? It is a bundle of sticks, but it is also fascism. MONOTHEISTIC RELIGION COULD BE USED FOR MASS MIND CONTROL At its worst, monotheism-as practiced in the Middle Ages, for example-involved singular control over everybody's thoughts. Remember-in the Middle Ages, if you didn't believe in the official Catholic doctrine, then you and your entire family would be killed-or tortured until you confessed. DW: Right. That was the Inquisition. BF: Well, yeah! THEY'RE MORE SOPHISTICATED NOW-BUT STILL LOSING THE BATTLE And it's much more sophisticated now. Five companies control all the major English- media-including the TV, the newspapers, the radios, the Hollywood studios. It's much more sophisticated now. They're trying to get everybody to think the same way-and they're losing . 9/11, the story there, was just so full of holes and contradictions that they were losing a significant part of their brainwashed audience-including myself, because I was a high-level brainwashee. DW: Right. PENTAGON BLEW UP UNDERGROUND BASES TO FIGHT GENOCIDE BF: In any case, what happened was that there was a group within the Pentagon and the agencies and stuff that realized this plan was insane. They knew that the plan to kill 90 percent of humanity was wrong. They then blew up the underground bases the elites were going to use to hide in when they carried out their nuclear holocaust. DW: Okay. I want to get back to that, because that is a really central point. There is one question I want to ask you before we get to that, because that's the conclusion of the discussion. WHY DOES THE CABAL NEED TO STEAL MONEY? Why did these guys need money? If they have so much infrastructure, so many assets, and massive political power, why can't they just nakedly exercise power... move men around, move munitions around? Why do they need money? Why are they going around like a crackhead looking for a fix? Why are they going to all these different countries and trying to scam money off of them? Why can't they just print dollars and make more money? BF: Because people aren't accepting their dollars worldwide. You've got to remember there are 800 US military bases around the world. If they can't make the payroll for these guys, they're going to be marching out of their bases with food bowls in their hands, begging for food. DW: Right. THE ASIANS CUT OFF THE MONEY SUPPLY TO WALL STREET BF: They're being cut off from their oil, from their other resources. That was their Achilles heel-the control of money. Their private army was self-financing. They had their own industries and their own income. The US army is dependent on Wall Street financing. That's why they were dependent on ultimately the Chinese and the Asians, who were financing Wall Street. YOU CAN BE THE GOOD GUYS AGAIN That's why I told the Pentagon guys, "You can have a Starship Enterprise future, exploring the Universe and all that kind of stuff. Just work with us. "We're not going to cut you off. You're not going to end up like the Soviet Union, where you have a general who is now suddenly being forced to drive a taxi in London. "You can be the good guys again." A lot of them said, "Hey, I think that's a good idea. We want to be heroes again. We don't want to be the bad guys." SUPPRESSED TECHNOLOGY INCLUDING ANTIGRAV AND 'STARGATES' DW: You're saying that they have suppressed technology that could bring us into the Starship Enterprise reality. http://www.divinecosmos.com/start-here/davids-blog/807-fulford-interview-exclusive A third group based in the US military-intelligence establishment proposes a 5-year swords-to-plowshares transformation of the Pentagon. This group has the potential to develop the over 6,000 patents that have hitherto been suppressed for "national security" reasons. One technology they possess is anti-gravity. This would make automobiles obsolete and allow roadways to be transformed into gardens. They claim to control technology that allows the creation of portals into other dimensions. They claim (we have not seen proof but have heard this from many credible eye-witnesses) that many so-called underground bases around the world are actually such portals. Hopefully we will soon be able to see if this is true. If so the implications are more than mind-boggling.] 5,135 INVENTIONS HAVE BEEN CLASSIFIED BF: I don't know about . But, we can confirm, according to the American Academy of Sciences, that more than six thousand patents have been suppressed for so-called "security" or "public safety" reasons. "The Source Field Investigations." The Federation of American Scientists revealed that 5,135 inventions had been classified by the end of FY 2010. Among other shocking revelations, we now know that any power system that is more than 70-80 percent efficient at converting energy will automatically be declared classified.] Some of these probably need to be suppressed. We don't want everyone to have a backyard nuke, for example. DW: Sure. BF: But a lot of them, I'm hearing, were just kept because these people were acting like dogs in the manger. They only wanted the elite to have it. MANY UFOS ARE FAKE So my understanding is that, for example, a lot of the so-called UFOs are just sophisticated earth-based secret aircraft that aren't available to the public at large. DW: I would agree with that. Yeah. ALIEN ABDUCTIONS MAY BE FROM "PLFs" OWNED BY THE CABAL "Hidden Truth, Forbidden Knowledge," Dr. Steven Greer of the Disclosure Project reveals compelling insider testimony that UFO abductions are being carried out by so-called PLFs, or Programmable Life Forms, owned by the cabal. There are no reports of "alien abduction" prior to the early 1960s with the infamous Betty and Barney Hill case. This appears to be when the PLF technology was first perfected and put into use. ALL ET CONTACTS IN THE 1950S WERE WITH POSITIVE HUMANS These ETs appear to be the same people who appeared in ancient civilizations around the world and were labeled as "gods" or "angels." Many of these 1950s contacts occurred in the US and Canada, and were studied and compiled by Wilbert B. Smith-a Canadian government worker with classified clearance. An entirely separate set of positive contacts occurred in Italy, and were the subject of the TV documentary "The Friendship Case" , in which key firsthand witnesses broke their silence and spoke about the events they experienced. A great deal of valuable information about both the US/Canada and Italian contacts can be found in "1950s Human ETs Prepare Us for Golden Age" here . BIOLOGICAL ROBOTS USED TO FIGHT THE POSITIVE ETs WITH FEAR Greer's contacts confirmed the PLF technology was acquired from ETs-and involves advanced cloning principles to create a "biological robot". Apparently, a human fetus is grown in an artificial environment, and without the pressure of the womb, it retains fetal proportions and features-including the large eyes, big head and thin body-on into adulthood. POSITIVE ETs WOULD NOT INTERFERE UNTIL 2012 "Mr. X" , an employee for a major defense contractor, the positive ETs gave a very important message to the cabal in the early 1950s. Several top-secret documents revealed that unless the ETs were specifically invited to show up by a majority of the people, and / or their leaders, they could not appear publicly and openly, on any mass scale, until the end of the year 2012. This was due to their cooperation with a natural cycle in the Earth-which is apparently governed by a meta-intelligence that exists at the planetary, solar, galactic and universal level-namely the Source Field. The prophecies and workings of this cycle, and its effects on human evolution, are explored in unprecedented new scientific depth in my book The Source Field Investigations (SFI). SFI debuted at #18 on the New York Times best-seller list, increased to #16 the second week and is at #18 for the third week. Our publisher Penguin, incidentally, is not part of the cabal, nor the top five media companies. Extensive secrecy was kept around the book until its release to insure it would not be interfered with. PLFs USED TO TERRIFY PUBLIC AND PREPARE FOR "ALIEN 9/11" "alien abduction" phenomenon was to terrify the public-and help set the stage for a fake "Alien 9/11". This fake alien attack has been extensively telegraphed in a multiplicity of different movies-18 different movies in the recent past alone. The major media conglomerates are owned by the cabal and produce these "alien invasion" films for propaganda purposes. ETs ARE NOW COOPERATING WITH EFFORTS TO DEFEAT THE CABAL Namely, ETs have apparently been cooperating with this international resistance group to defeat the cabal. This was totally unexpected, as the cabal was led to believe the ETs had to follow spiritual laws that forbade them from ever intervening-under any circumstances. Advanced ET technologies are now being used to strike and disable cabal assets. Many examples have been given in my "China's October Surprise " article series. Just read everything in David's Blog on divinecosmos.com beginning from October 2010. The joint campaign began last October-and many obvious, public targets were hit, all with zero casualties. This included the powering-down of 50 Minuteman ICBMs-and top military witnesses have now publicly reported that a cigar-shaped craft was hovering overhead the entire time. THE UNDERGROUND BASES WERE A MUCH MORE SIGNIFICANT STRIKE These earlier attacks did apparently wipe out a great deal of individual craft and munitions that the cabal could have used to fake an alien invasion, according to the insiders I have spoken to. However, it was always done a little here, a little there-never all at once. This gave the cabal a false hope that they still had a chance, even as their infrastructure crumbled. It is very likely that the ETs would not have destroyed two entire underground cities on their own. This attack was much, much bigger than anything else had been. I believe Fulford is correct in saying that the "good guys" in the Pentagon did this themselves-to stop the genocide from taking place. ONCE WE DEFEAT THE CABAL, WE STOP THE ABDUCTIONS "alien threat" appears to be largely generated from within this group. Therefore, once we defeat the cabal, we stop the abductions... and the UFO cover-up.] LET'S USE WHAT WE HAVE-TO TRANSFORM THE PLANET BF: And so, the point is, let's develop these patents in a safe way, and you can have a boom time such as we haven't had in a very long time. DW: Right. Instead of creating these financial products that are just voodoo, why not actually build infrastructure? The existing military-industrial complex, I would argue, is probably the only entity on Earth that has the tools, the factories, the infrastructure and the staff to be able to accomplish this. BF: Yeah! Exactly. And that's why the generals are now on our side. The people who are not on our side are mostly bribed politicians in Washington DC, and the Wall Street crowd. So they are being increasingly isolated. WHY IN THE WORLD DO THEY WANT TO KILL SO MANY PEOPLE? DW: Now what possible reason could they have-these adversaries... Why in the world do they think they want to reduce population? The average person's mind shuts down because they can't conceptualize that anyone would be that evil. So what's their rationale, as far as you understood it? MASS DEATH IS "GOOD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT" BF: The story they tell me is, "Look. We're destroying the environment. There's too many people for the planet to support." CULTIVATING THE HUMAN RACE LIKE GARDENERS The other thing is these people are elitists. They believe in eugenics. They say too many stupid people are breeding too much. Useless eaters. All they do is they destroy the environment, and they don't produce anything. They just sit around and watch TV. We don't need these people. We want to eliminate the weak and the useless, and just keep the elite. We want to increase and improve the genetic quality of the human race by purging the garbage from the system. And, we get to save the environment and create a whole new natural ecosystem. The Georgia Guidestones has their philosophy written out. 500 million people on Earth, in harmony with their environment. This is their goal. They put it in eco-terms. THE NAZIS WERE ENVIRONMENTALISTS People can forget the Nazis were great green people when it came to preserving nature and natural parks, all that kind of stuff. They were really gung ho. In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote that he wanted to enslave the non-white peoples and then kill them. It's right there. It's the same group. They're the same Nazis. The same philosophy. The rationale was that if the US didn't get them, they would fall into the hands of the Soviet Union, which was far worse. It is a well-established, documented fact that Prescott Bush was one of Hitler's main bankers and financial liaisons. A "Business Plot" was attempted in the 1930s, by Prescott Bush and others, that would have led to the overthrow of American constitutional government and the installing of a fascist system patterned off of Hitler and Mussolini.] THEY WANTED A SMALL, ENSLAVED POPULATION TO PAMPER THEM The other thing the super-elite were saying was, "Hey, we're really special. We're really smart. We are the elite, and we should rule the planet like God-kings... "We will need about 500 million slaves or so to keep us pampered, but the rest we don't need." And it's also about control. They don't have the brainwashed control over large parts of the planet. They realized they weren't going to be able to control these people. So they thought "let's kill them," rather than lose control of the planet. THE CABAL WANTS YOU TO FEEL HOPELESS... AND DOOMED DW: Now a lot of people who read about this stuff online, the vast majority in fact-including most of the guests Jeff Rense or Alex Jones would have on-feel there is an incredible sense of futility. Everyone seems to go with the knee-jerk reaction that all the governments in the world, all the countries in the world, everybody is in on it. BF: That's where they are being used and turned into controlled opposition. They are trying to numb people to the message. "Yeah, it's happening, but there is nothing you can do about it. It's inevitable." That's simply not the case. DW: Could you explain why that is not the case? THEY ONLY CONTROL THE G5 COUNTRIES... AND A FEW SHILLS BF: They only now control the G5 countries. DW: Which countries are those? BF: Those countries are Italy, France, England, Germany and the United States. DW: That's it? You're saying ALL the other countries in the world they don't control anymore? BF: If you look at the countries that accepted the new... I think maybe they've got a few subject countries like Honduras, Columbia and places like that. MOST OF THE REST OF THE WORLD IS PART OF THE ALLIANCE If you look at the African Union, they put out their own currency backed by Khadafy's gold-and they don't support this group. Or most of the countries in Asia. Russia. China. DW: What about European countries like Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania? BF: They were at this meeting. There was a meeting in Monaco at the end of August. 57 COUNTRIES GATHERED TO DISCUSS HOW TO DEFEAT THE CABAL 57 countries were invited by the Swiss to discuss cutting these people off financially-and creating an international financial boycott against the controllers of the G5. DW: Now that's an incredible statement you're making. You're saying 57 different countries, including some of these Eastern European countries... BF: There were representatives from the Netherlands and Canada there too, OK? DW: Wow. What about South America? BF: Yeah, of course. And since then, more than 80 countries have signed on. IT'S GOING TO BECOME PUBLIC We're reaching a point where it's going to become public. It's going to be on the airwaves. It's going to be on the news. They can't hide it much longer. DW: Why the hell haven't they made this public already? If people are dying, and these guys are trying to fake an alien invasion-that's one thing we keep hearing, that they are trying to do an Alien 9/11-why haven't they gone public already? BF: You don't think they've tried? VERY DIFFICULT TO GET THE TRUTH PUBLISHED IN THE MAINSTREAM Look, I had a book proposal at the Berlin book fair. Eleven publishing companies wanted that book out there, including five major ones. They all came back and said they were told by their bosses they couldn't do it. DW: Wow. BF: They've had people going and telling everybody I've ever associated with professionally that I had become an insane drug user. They control the media. You've got to remember that. There are five companies. Five corporations-controlled by people like Rupert Murdoch, Redstone and stuff. They have a grip over all the TV studios, all the newspapers, the radio stations, Hollywood studios, you name it. THIS IS NOT A GLOBAL ECONOMIC COLLAPSE DW: So if their economies are going to go down, they can then say it's a global economic collapse. BF: And it's NOT a global economic collapse! SEVEN PERCENT WORLD ECONOMIC GROWTH OUTSIDE THE G5 Again, if you look at the public statistics, you will see that if you exclude the G5 countries, the average growth in the world economy last year was seven percent! DW: Holy crap! BF: People are booming! It's not a world crisis-it's a crisis among the countries controlled by this cabal. DW: And it's only the G5 nations. Wow! BF: Yes! I mean, look at the statistics. They're all there. It's all in the public record. You just have to look at government websites and check this out. EVERYTHING IS AVAILABLE IN THE PUBLIC RECORD There's nothing I'm saying-including the plan to kill 90 percent of the world's population-that is not in the public record. It's in their own writings! We have countless confessions. Wernher Von Braun, the guy behind the Apollo projects, said on his deathbed that they were going to use a fake alien invasion as an excuse for genocide. It's crazy stuff-but it's provable. These people don't think like normal humans. I guess it was Herbert Hoover-no, J. Edgar Hoover-who said, when a conspiracy is so big, people's mind boggles and they go into denial. In any case, these people are coming down. We've got... DW: (crosstalk) Right. Now you said something that is very provocative. TELL US MORE ABOUT THIS INTERNATIONAL MEETING... You said that there is this meeting that happened, with I believe you said 57 different countries, was it? BF: Yes. DW: And this happened in Monaco? BF: Yes. And it was taken on board a ship which went into international waters. According to two witnesses, senator Jay Rockefeller showed up and tried to break into the meeting-and he was physically ejected. THE CABAL SENT IN BLACK HELICOPTERS-BUT WERE CHASED OUT Two black helicopters appeared above the ship during the meeting, and they were chased away by harrier jets. DW: Now these black helicopters were like Apaches with weapons on them? BF: I don't know the details. I just heard that there were two helicopters, and there was a danger that they were going to use some kind of electromagnetic weapon against the ship. DW: Oh, like scalar technology kind of stuff. Yeah. BF: And I know that they were chased away by two harrier jets. DW: Wow! BF: US military jets. THEY WOULD HAVE KILLED EVERYONE-AND TRIED TO MAINTAIN CONTROL DW: If they had succeeded with those helicopters, what do you think might have happened there? Would everybody have just died? BF: Well, they would have killed all the representatives. Then they would have said, "Hey, we're in charge, and if you try to go against us, we'll kill you." This is what they've been doing ever since World War II. HOW COULD THEY COVER UP A MASS KILLING OF THIS SCOPE? DW: If so many persons of interest died at once, wouldn't that become a massive international incident that would require investigation anyway? BF: They have done this before. The Titanic was sunk deliberately to get rid of six hundred senior financiers who were opposed to the taking over of the Federal Reserve Board. DW: Wow. BF: They would come up with some story about the Tragedy of Monaco. And the kool-aid drinkers out there would go and believe it! I'm sorry, but that's how it is. THREE DIFFERENT SOURCES CONFIRMED THE MEETING DW: Were you at this meeting yourself, Ben? BF: No. A close colleague of mine was there. And, I confirmed it from two other people who were there, who aren't related to that colleague of mine. DID ANY OLD WORLD ORDER MEMBERS GET TO ATTEND THE MEETING? DW: Now what about people from the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg, or Council on Foreign Relations? BF: They were deliberately excluded. DW: Any one of them, no matter who? BF: No matter who. If they were a member, they weren't allowed. DW: And that's also why Jay Rockefeller wasn't allowed in. BF: That's right. BILDER-BUST Remember the Bilderberger meeting that took place in June, in St. Moritz, Switzerland this year? It was supposed to last until Tuesday. They all had to flee on Sunday night, because they were about to be arrested by the Swiss. DW: Whoa! I never heard that before. BF: Well, it's there! SWISS PARLIAMENT MEMBER BEATEN-AND CALLS IN THE COPS Again, what happened was a Swiss lawmaker tried to get into the site and he was beaten up. He went to the Swiss government and said "I'm a Swiss member of parliament, in my own country, and they beat me up and threw me out. That's illegal." They said "Yes. We'll go arrest them." They all had to pack their suitcases and flee on Sunday night-before being arrested on Monday. DW: So this would have been like a paramilitary swat team that would have swept in. BF: Well yeah-the police authority. DW: Right. BF: So there you go. The Bilderbergers were chased out, with their tails between their legs. DW: Unbelievable! BF: That's there for everybody to see. HOW CAN THESE 80 COUNTRIES ACTUALLY DEFEAT THE CABAL? DW: So you're saying that this meeting in Monaco took place on a ship. You have representatives from 57 countries. You said 80 countries now have signed on to this treaty. Now could we get into some detail about why this is so significant? What did they talk about? How are they going to pull off doing something like this, where these entities-these five corporations-control the world's media? Let's go into that a little bit. ONCE THEY CAN'T PAY THE GOONS, THEY'RE FINISHED BF: They don't control the world's money, you see. Once they lose the control of the goons, the people with the guns, then that's it. PENTAGON PATRIOTS WILL OVERTAKE CABAL MEDIA OUTLETS At a certain point, I believe the Pentagon will probably send people in to the TV headquarters in the US. You're going to see new faces and a totally different story coming out on your TV sets soon. DW: That's also a very heavy statement. ISN'T THE PENTAGON PART OF THE PROBLEM? What is the context of the Pentagon in light of this meeting of 57 different countries? Wouldn't everybody in the Pentagon be part of the Bilderberg / Trilateral Commission thing? BF: No. The Pentagon was represented there. The Bilderberg / Trilateral Commission was not. THE MAJORITY OF THE PENTAGON SUPPORTS THE ALLIANCE DW: What percentage of the Pentagon is on the side of this alliance? BF: I've heard that the only generals who are not on board are like Petraeus. From what I've heard, most of the Joint Chiefs are now with this group. DW: What about lower levels of the hierarchy? Like the soldiers. BF: The lower levels are completely pissed off. They support Ron Paul-and they know that there's something totally wrong. The majority are rejecting the plans, roughly 80-90 percent, from what I heard. You can't win a battle against those odds.] THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE READY FOR REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE The opinion polls in the US show that 87 percent of Americans don't trust Washington. That should tell you the mental state in America now. And they are saying, "We don't want these scumbags in charge anymore." They're angry, but they're not sure who they should be angry at. That's, I think, how the majority of Americans think. They know there is something wrong. They know it has something to do with Wall Street and Washington. They don't know the details, but they wish somebody would come in and do something about it. And that is what is going to happen. These people are going to go to jail. THE "NEOCONS" ARE THE LEADERS OF THE CABAL And I can tell you who the leaders are. People like Henry Kissinger, George Bush Senior, George Bush Junior, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Tony Blair. We know who they are. DW: So these are Neocons and their allies. BF: Neocons is the label that you use for them. That's the group that had this crazy plan that somehow they could take over the world's oil and still control the world through the 21st century. We know who they are. When you take away that curtain, it's like the Wizard of Oz. You pull away the curtain and you see a little old man sitting at the control desk. (crosstalk) And that's what happened when I went... MANY MEDIA NETWORKS DON'T APPEAR TO BE NEOCON OUTLETS DW: (crosstalk) Okay. I think most people would admit that Fox News and News Corporation could be a shill for these guys. But to say... you're basically saying that all the media in America, for the most part, is controlled by these folks? Why would the media not all sound like Fox, then? NO ONE EVER TALKS ABOUT 9/11 TRUTH BF: How many major networks and Hollywood studios have come out with 9/11 truth? Okay? DW: Good point. BF: Just ask yourself that. And then you can understand. DW: So you would say... BF: (crosstalk) Look, I have to go, but what I'm telling you is this. WE KNOW EXACTLY WHO SPENT THE MONEY We've found this thing called the Global Collateral Accounts. It's a codebook that shows who's been using the world's money since the end of World War II-and for what reason. It has a list of names. For example, who financed the Vietnam War and why. All that kind of stuff. We have these records now. MASSIVE NUMBERS OF NEW WHISTLEBLOWERS COMING FORWARD We're having people abandoning that cabal like rats jumping off a sinking ship. We have a world Who's Who coming to us with information. THIS COULD BE THE BIGGEST EVENT IN 2000 YEARS When this happens, this is going to be, I think, ultimately the biggest thing-certainly since World War II. Possibly the biggest thing in two thousand years. We're going to see something... an ancient cabal that has controlled humanity through murder, propaganda and bribery for possibly thousands of years. It is going to come to an end. It's going to be something that has not happened in the history of our planet before. It's going to be incredible... basically we're talking about the end of Babylonian-style tyranny. DW: Wow. BF: That's how far it goes back. VATICAN AND P2 LODGE CLAIM SECRET CONTROL SINCE JULIUS CAESAR Certainly the P2 Freemasonic lodge and the Vatican claim that they have controlled things in secret since the time of Julius Caesar. DW: Wow. BF: I went to Italy. I met them and they tried to poison me. They didn't think I would come alive out of Italy with the information they gave me-but I did. They are very off-base about how the prophecy would be fulfilled, as I discuss in my new book-but they have always been keenly aware of this as their timetable, which is why there is such urgency. Fulford didn't cover it here, but both the Rockefeller and the Rothschild factions are being forced to step down and relinquish control by this 80-country alliance. That's why no Bilderberg / CFR / Trilateral members were allowed in. Some insiders have revealed they are already working out the terms of surrender at a very high level, and the process is quite unbearable for them -- with lots of arguing and bruised egos.] DW: Okay. A couple quick questions just to tie this off. WHO NUKED THE BASES? WAS THIS PART OF THE MONACO ACCORDS? Who did the underground bases, in your estimation? Who nuked them and why? Does it have any relationship with this meeting in Monaco? BF: Yes. It was Pentagon white hats saying to the elite, "You're not going to destroy the surface of the planet and escape yourselves... "If you're going to destroy the surface of the planet, you're going to destroy your families too. You're not going to escape." They made it very clear to them that they are not going to be able to initiate some kind of nuclear holocaust and be able to get away with it. DW: Right. Events like Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Fukushima are much less serious than the scope of what could be done in an all-out nuclear attack. Given the extent to which ETs have powered down any and all Old World Order nuclear assets, it is amazing that the cabal continued to be in denial and believe they would ever be allowed to use them on any significant level.] NOW THEY HAVE NOWHERE TO HIDE These guys must have always thought somehow that these bases were safe. And now none of them are safe. BF: Yes. They had their greenhouses, and their food supplies, and their big-screen TVs, and their supply of women. It's like Dr. Strangelove. "We'll hide in our tunnels with our young ladies while everybody else up on the surface dies." DW: Right. BF: "Then we'll come out and we'll take over the planet-and breed like rabbits." Well, that ain't gonna happen. OK? THEY NOW HAVE DETAILED MAPS AND FILMS OF ALL THE BASES DW: You had said on your blog that some of your people who were there in Monaco have detailed maps of these underground bases. They know exactly where they are. And footage of the bases was shown? BF: That's right. the world governments to show, "Yes, it's true. These crazy people were planning to kill 90 percent of humanity." The world's governments know this. HOW MIGHT THIS EVENT HAPPEN-AND WHEN? DW: Okay, so how can we expect that this event will take place? What might happen and when might it happen? What are we looking at? What are we going into here? What will be the precursors of this? BF: There are several possibilities. The one I'm hearing the most, the one that the Pentagon backs, is a lawsuit that would lead to the arrest of the top cabalists. WILCOCK'S OWN TESTIMONY OF WHAT IS EXPECTED I have been told the insiders are considering seven different ways in which this collapse could happen. All of them are thought to be potentially very imminent, even before the end of the year. No one is certain of the exact timing, though, and the "windows" are always changing based on unpredictable events. The recent announcement of the bankruptcy of the US Postal Service brings us very close to this point already-as one example. THEY'RE PRAYING FOR CHAOS Once this dollar collapse / government bankruptcy is officially acknowledged and recognized by the public at large, the cabal expects riots and social upheaval. Again, I believe they fantasize far too much about the scope and the severity of what will occur. It's undoubtedly a coping mechanism. The cabal members desperately hope the people will turn against each other, as it is their last hope to maintain any control over the situation. The fear-porn scenarios I have heard seem utterly fanciful-particularly since the majority of the military will turn on those who try to harm the public in any way. Some of the technology that will be used to turn against the conspirators is highly classified and highly effective. Most people will probably never know it was used. These "fracking" events will be "friendly fire" indeed. And Americans are not going to hand over their guns and gold. THEY HAVE PLANTED EXPLOSIVES UNDER MANY CRITICAL BRIDGES I did hear that cabal insiders have already planted demolition charges to blow up a large number of critical bridges and runways-isolating various geographical regions and causing food shortages for a period of time. This massive strike, of course, will be blamed on "terrorists" hitting America at its weakest moment. This is one of the strongest real threats we face once this epic announcement is finally made. Exposing these plans spoils any element of surprise. So many insiders are defecting that many, if not most of these explosives will hopefully be located and neutralized in advance-if they haven't already been. However, it may be unrealistic to assume that all of them will be neutralized, since they can all be detonated by remote control at the push of a button. CRITICAL SUPPLIES WILL STILL BE DISTRIBUTED They did hope this attack would lead to mass starvation, anarchy and chaos. However, even with impaired land transit and airport runways, critical supplies will still get where they are needed by the focused efforts of the just-including the military. The nationwide Eisenhower interstate system was built to be used as emergency aircraft runways, for example-and it is far too huge to be able to destroy. Helicopters do not require airstrips either. MASS ARRESTS The official bankruptcy announcement, and the potential shock of widespread bridge and runway detonations, will be immediately followed by mass arrests. This will include key staff from all three branches of government: senators, congressmen, judges and executives. It will also include top military brass, top intelligence personnel, defense contractors, top media moguls, corporate executives, Federal Reserve Board staff, top financiers and "too big to fail" financial entities, et cetera. Fulford has said that the Pentagon may now house these people, at least temporarily, in the very same "detention camps" they had originally planned on using against American citizens. Karma's a bitch. TRYING TO FIND A HIDING PLACE Everyone on this list is scrambling for a place to hide. The bases near Washington DC and Denver were both quite popular due to their convenient locations. Most of the top people had comfy, personalized living spaces already set up in these locations-with their own memorabilia, keepsakes and nostalgic items. Many of these people have also moved their personal belongings to purported safety zones in South America-and only have a minimum number of items left in their own homes in the US. ESCAPE FLIGHTS I am told the cabal members have near-instant escape flights planned. The pilots and aircraft are now on 24-hour notice. Most of these pilots will probably defect. I also have very good intel that the personnel staffing these safety zones have already agreed to turn on them as soon as they arrive. Pilots who do not defect are undoubtedly in mortal peril if they attempt to complete these flights. Fulford also said the South American countries themselves have now agreed to infiltrate and disrupt these zones-and their incoming flights. A MILLION DISPOSSESSED SOULS Fulford has talked at length about how the number of insiders who are fearing for their lives is about a million people. They have been scrambling around the world trying to beg, borrow or steal any land where they could have sanctuary. They have used earthquake and weather weapons to punish countries who denied them access. This includes the Christchurch quake in New Zealand after the cabal was denied use of their lush, southernmost mega-island. North Korea is the first country that is even considering helping them, and this development has only occurred very recently. Kim Jong-Il will only help them if they promise to help him regain control of South Korea. This entire plan is very unlikely to succeed. And now, back to the recorded interview.] THEY MAY SETTLE FOR A TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMITTEE BF: But right now, they're also trying to cut a deal. saying, "Hey, look. If you guys will stop the nuclear terror, then maybe we'll forgive you." It's one of those situations where so many people are involved that it is better to have a truth and reconciliation committee rather than a bunch of arrests and beheadings, you know? DW: So you're saying that these underground nuclear strikes against the bases... BF: (crosstalk) What I'm saying is that there either will be thousands of arrests of prominent people, starting with people like Henry Kissinger... Or else, they will cut a deal-and appear before a truth and reconciliation committee in exchange for one time of forgiveness. WHEN MIGHT THIS ALL COME TO A HEAD? DW: Do we have a time window on when this all might come to a head? BF: Well, it's a war. Who knows what crazy stuff they will do next? It could be as early as this fall. It could be as late as next summer. I don't have a precise date. DW: Okay. BF: But I'm hearing we're pretty close now. Also, highly classified documents dating back to 2008 had given a time window of December 2011 for a planned evacuation of the White House due to an "alien invasion". So, in order to throw off these planned timetables, action is now happening very quickly.] DID THE CABAL RETALIATE AGAINST THE RUSSIANS? DW: Do you think the failure of the Russian airplane that had their entire hockey team onboard was in any way related to this war? BF: It's possible. But generally, they would rather get a bunch of generals than hockey players. There was a crash off the coast of Brazil that was involved in this, I know. But I don't know about the hockey players. Specifically, I was told that the average American sports fan is only about one percent as enthusiastic as the average Russian is about their hockey team. Therefore, this plane crash was a groin kick to the Russian people, giving them a withering emotional and psychological attack.] WHAT HAPPENS ONCE THE CABAL IS ACTUALLY DEFEATED? DW: OK. So just in summary, then, could you paint a picture for us? Let's assume that this happened. Let's assume that these 80 countries get what they want. Just pain the picture of what happens. Where do we go as a planet, and how long is it going to take us to get there? BF: It's just common sense. We have the technical ability to end poverty and stop environmental destruction within a year. We just don't have the institutions or the will to do it. So instead of a fake War on Terror, aimed at financing the defense companies forever, in a useless manner, you have some sort of huge campaign, globally: the equivalent of World War III, but a peaceful one. And then, start telling people the truth about their history-which they've been lied to about so much. IT'S GOING TO BE LIKE THE FALL OF JAPAN OR THE USSR-BUT MUCH BETTER start building new institutions that are fair, transparent and meritocratic. Anybody can climb the pyramid and get to the top if they are good enough and determined enough-instead of an inbred family group controlling it. The people of Japan went through it at the end of World War II. Suddenly they were told their emperor was not a god, and that the war wasn't actually ending in victory. Soon everything was about to change. It's going to be like that. Ask anyone who went through the end of the Soviet Union what it was like, and you get a pretty good idea about what is coming. But, unlike the end of the Soviet Union, it is not going to be followed by hardship or poverty. It's going to be followed by an era of unprecedented prosperity and happiness. OK? I've gotta go. DW: Great. Thank you so much. BF: Bye! http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2011/09/two-underground-cities-destroyed-on-8-23-2011-1110507.html?currentSplittedPage=0 READ MORE http://www.exohuman.com/wordpress/2011/09/two-underground-nwo-bases-destroyed/ http://divinecosmos.com/podcasts/Wilcock_Fulford_2011-9-14.mp3 Related Stories . City Demands Christians Get Permit For Bible Study Already Fined $300, Facing Potential Penalty Of.... . I Don't Know What's Happened To The Kids Today - Labi Siffre . Missing: Tons Of US-Supplied Nuclear Weapons Material . CIA Pitches Scripts To Hollywood . Moon Rising Movie: Revisiting the NASA Cover-up of the Moon . Bewilderment at Increased Sightings of UFOs . Extensive UFO News Coverage of UFO Incident in Southern California . Turning Swords into Plowshares . Athena: A Thousand Years of Peace . Another Victim Of Fullerton Cops That Murdered Kelly Thomas Steps Forward Nuked Underground Base Causing Massive Sinkhole In Virginia - Intel On Two Underground Cities Destroyed On 8-23-2011 http://www.scribd.com/doc/106810444/Nuked-Underground-Base-Causing-Massive-Sinkhole-In-Virginia-%E2%80%93-Intel-On-Two-Underground-Cities-Destroyed-On-8-23-2011 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ad5_1366849628 Vegas Street Prophet Nuked Underground Base Causing Massive Sinkhole In Virginia? nuked DUMBs, underground cities, Stafford, VA, Denver, deep underground military bases Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:13:04 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=851_1320432056 LickyLicky The Irish Government has decided to close Ireland's embassies to the Vatican and Iran as well as its representative office in Timor Leste. In a statement this evening, T'anaiste Eamon Gilmore said that the decision followed a review of overseas missions carried out by the Department of Foreign Affairs, which gave "particular attention to the economic return from bilateral missions". Mr Gilmore said that the Government was obliged to implement cuts to meet targets set out in the EU/IMF rescue programme. He said the closure of the three embassies would save around EUR1.25m a year. He said that while the embassy to the Holy See was one of Ireland's oldest missions, it yielded no economic return, and that Ireland's interests could be sufficiently represented by a non-resident ambassador.Responding to the decision, the Primate of Ireland said he wished to express his "profound disappointment" at the closure. "This decision seems to show little regard for the important role played by the Holy See in international relations and of the historic ties between the Irish people and the Holy See over many centuries," said Cardinal Se'an Brady. The Vatican also issued a statement this evening in which it said noted the decision. It said every state was "free to decide, on the basis of its possibilities and its interests, whether to have an Ambassador to the Holy See resident in Rome or in another country. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=851_1320432056 LickyLicky Irish Government closes its Embassy in the Vatican City Irish, vatican,pope,holy see,embassy closure,cost cutting,eamonn gilmore,cardinal sean brady,primate of Ireland, Mon, 10 Mar 2008 07:35:47 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b1a_1205148947 theblue8 ROME http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b1a_1205148947 theblue8 Vatican's Swiss Guard head quits Pope, Vatican, Holy See, Rome, Swiss Guards, Pope Benedict XVI, Col. Elmar Theodore Maeder Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:55:07 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=12d_1271998352 gregsto Illinois Man Sues Pope, Vatican in Alleged Sex Abuse Case By NICK DIVITO MILWAUKEE (CN) - The Roman Catholic Church knew about sexual abuse at a Wisconsin school for the deaf since the 1970s but did nothing about it because the accused priest was considered "too valuable to the deaf school to remove," one of the priest's alleged victims claimed Thursday in a federal lawsuit that targeted the Vatican and Pope Benedict XVI. "John Doe 16" of Illinois says he wrote a letter to then-Vatican Secretary of State Angelo Sodano in March 1995, claiming that the Rev. Lawrence Murphy molested him for several years while he was a student at St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis, Wisc. Murphy is accused of abusing 200 boys at the school from 1950 to 1975. Although Murphy died in 1998, the case renews criticism that then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now the pope, knew about the accusations but failed to act. "The problem of childhood sexual abuse committed by Roman Catholic clerics ... is almost as old as the Roman Catholic Church itself," the lawsuit states. "Defendant knew that there was a high probability that these clerics would sexually molest more children, but sought to protect itself from scandal, sought to keep its income stream going, at the peril of children." The 55-page lawsuit takes aim at how the Roman Catholic Church has handled accusations of sexual abuse in the past. "While the 'public' policy of the ... Holy See is to forbid childhood sexual abuse by priests and clerics within its control, the actual 'private' or secret policy is to harbor and protect its abusive priests, clerks, bishops, archbishops, agents and employees from public disclosure and prosecution, in order to maintain the pope's rightful claim of control and thereby ensure that its parishioners, followers and financial contributors will keep confidence in the institution, continue to view the Holy See and the pope as deserving of allegiance, and, therefore, continue to contribute money and property" to the institution. The lawsuit says Murphy admitted to Archbishop Albert Meyer that he sexually abused boys at the school. In 1972, the Archdiocese got a letter from a mother that outlined an "unfortunate episode involving daughter ... and the administration at St. John's School for the Deaf in the person of Father Murphy," according to the complaint. The lawsuit says a boy also complained in either 1972 or 1973 that Murphy has sexually molested him. Several other boys came forward, claiming they too were sexually molested, the lawsuit states. In 1974, a group of deaf students delivered 15 to 20 affidavits to Archbishop William Cousins, but they were told that "Murphy was too valuable to the deaf school to remove him," according to the complaint. Plaintiff says he wrote two letters to Sodano about his alleged abuse, indicating in the letter that Murphy has admitted to molesting 34 children. Plaintiff does not offer any specifics of sexual abuse that he says he suffered. "Ratzinger, Sodano and Bertone each knew or should have known before plaintiff's letters to Sodano that Murphy had sexually molested children," the lawsuit states. Plaintiff says he did not discover that defendants knew about sexual abuse at the school "until recently" because Ratzinger and others purposefully dragged their feet. "Defendant knew that there was a high probability that these clerics would sexually molest more children, but sought to protect itself from scandal, sought to keep its income stream going, at the peril of children." Defendants are Ratzinger, Bertone, who was Ratzinger's boss at the time of the investigation, Sodano and the Holy See, with an address of Apostolic Place, 00120 Vatican City, Europe. The lawsuit accuses defendants of breach of contract, unjust enrichment, conversion, negligence and fraud, among other things. Plaintiff wants the Holy See to report all allegations of childhood sexual abuse in "each and every one of the United States," and "to act in the best interests of children." He is represented by Paul Scoptur with Aiken & Scoptur. LlINK TO THE COMPLAINT: http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/04/22/complaint.pdf http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=12d_1271998352 gregsto llinois Man Sues Pope, Vatican in Alleged Sex Abuse Case pope, benedict, vatican, catholic, church, sex, child molestation, pedophile, scandal Wed, 12 Dec 2012 14:00:09 -0500 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2e9_1355337910 kingloui Greetings World. The Peoples Liberation Front and Anonymous are joining forces yet again to defend whistle-blowers and fight for transparency in government. This time in the most unlikely of places, the Vatican City State. This spring, a book was published which detailed massive corruption and wrong-doing in the highest levels of the Popes' administration. It was entitled "His Holiness" by Gianluigi Nuzzi. The book relied heavily on a massive cache of documents apparently leaked directly from the Pope's apartment/office at the Holy See. In May of this year, Paolo Gabriele the Pope's butler was arrested for photo-copying the massive trove of documents and delivering them to Nuzzi for use in his book. Today, Mr. Gabriele was convicted by the Vatican courts and sentenced to 18 months in an Italian prison (the Vatican does not have one) for this alleged disclosure of sensitive and secret material. The fact that Paolo Gabriele was almost certainly aided by someone high up in the Vatican government, most likely a Cardinal -- was never investigated by the Vatican police. Instead, Mr. Gabriele was given a very quick "trial" in a Vatican City courtroom and summarily sentenced to a year and a half in prison. The computer technician Claudio Sciarpelletti has been convicted of assisting in the disclosure and has been sentenced to two months. Anonymous and the Peoples Liberation Front will not stand by while whistle-blowers who expose corruption in governments or corporations are persecuted and imprisoned. Whether it be Bradley Manning in the USA or Paolo Gabriele in the Vatican City State, risking everything to bring transparency to the world is an act of extreme heroism -- and deserves to be defended at all costs. The Pope is an absolute monarch, and as such has the ability to instantly pardon Paolo Gabriele and Claudio Sciarpelletti. We DEMAND that the Pope do so AT ONCE. Until this one simple demand is met, Anonymous and the PLF will wage a relentless campaign. We will also work closely with Anonymous Italy to organize ground protests in St. Peter's Square, especially during outdoor Papal "audiences". The Roman Catholic Church should have nothing to hide, and nothing to fear from transparency. FREE Paolo Gabriele NOW! We Are Anonymous. We Are Everywhere. We Are Legion. We Do Not Forgive. We Do Not Forget. Your Holiness Benedict XVI, it is too late to EXPECT US! -------------------------------------------------------------------- Anonymous Webchat: http://bit.ly/SAO43D - Join us in chat.anonset.com in chan: #OpVatican - Anonymous Operation Vatican website: http://www.operationvatican.tk/ - AnonRelations Press Release: http://bit.ly/TzQL4b - Peoples Liberation Front: http://localleaks.me/plf/ - Anonymous Global: http://www.anonymousglobal.tk/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2e9_1355337910 kingloui Anonymous - Operation Vatican Anonymous, Anonymous Operation, Anonymous Announcement Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:12:42 -0500 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6bd_1295572145 Muhammad_ibn_Abdullah The decision was made this morning during a special meeting of researchers over "the recent unacceptable interference (of the Pope, ed), who sought protection for Coptic Christians." The Vatican spokesman: "The position of the Pontifical Council for interreligious dialogue remains an attitude of openness and willingness to dialogue. " Vatican City (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The Islamic Research Academy from the State University Al-Azhar decided, during a special meeting held this morning in Cairo, to suspend dialogue with the Vatican. Academy member, Abdel Muti al-Bayoumi, told Aki agency, "this decision was made in response to the position taken by Pope Benedict XVI on Islam." In this regard, al-Bayoumi recalled the Pope's controversial Regensburg address of 2006. The Al-Azhar academic added that the decision also takes into account, " the recent unacceptable interference (the Pope, ed), who sought protection for Coptic Christians," after the massacre in Alexandria. The Islamic theologian has therefore asked Pope Benedict XVI to "resume relations with Islam following the lead of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II." "I hope he takes the same position - he said - because he was very interested in our activities and the Joint Committee between al-Azhar and the Vatican at the time was very active." Egyptian religious did not particularly like " interference in the affairs of Egypt and the fact that Islam was described in the wrong way. We are still waiting for an apology over these two questions." Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, interviewed by AsiaNews, said: "The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, is gathering the necessary information to assess the situation, since it had not received any prior communication on the part of ' Al Azhar University in reference to the problem. " Father Lombardi also explained that "The position of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and the Holy See, even now remains the same as always, and that is an attitude of openness and readiness for dialogue." The Al Azhar decision comes just days after the Egyptian government's criticism of the Vatican. This was sparked by Benedict XVI mentioning the tragedy of the attack to the church of Alexandria in his speech to the diplomatic corps (see 10/01/2011 Pope: Religious freedom attacked by terrorism and marginalisation). Egypt recalled its ambassador, demanding that the Vatican not intervene in the country's internal affairs (12/01/2011 Cairo protests against the Vatican. Another Christian killed and five wounded). Benedict XVI was also criticised by the Imam of Al Azhar University January 1 last. According to Ahmed al-Tayyeb, the pope in his New Year's homily only appealed for the defence of Christians, failing to concern himself with the Muslims in Iraq. (See footnote (1) on 03/01/2011 Europe and Islam in the wake of attacks against Copts in Alexandria). Even Arab leaders, who met yesterday in Sharm el-Sheikh, while condemning the "terrorist" attacks on Christians in Egypt and Iraq, warned against "foreign interference on the issue of minority rights". http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Islamic-Al-Azhar-University-suspends-dialogue-with-Vatican-20558.html http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6bd_1295572145 Muhammad_ibn_Abdullah Dialog with Vatican Suspended over Plea to Protect Christians... islam, muslims, al azhar, egypt muhammad, sharia, jihad Thu, 09 Apr 2009 02:12:51 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=368_1239256546 ShadowankerdogKGB Remember what the Black Caucus said about Fidel Castro, then read this. What a stark contrast. August 2008 Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs OFFICIAL NAME: Republic of Cuba Geography Area: 110,860 sq. km. (44,200 sq. mi.); about the size of Pennsylvania. Cities: Capital--Havana (pop. 2 million). Other major cities--Santiago de Cuba, Camaguey, Santa Clara, Holguin, Guantanamo, Matanzas, Cienfuegos, Pinar del Rio. Terrain: Flat or gently rolling plains, hills; mountains up to 2,000 meters (6,000 ft.) in the southeast. Climate: Tropical, moderated by trade winds; dry season (November-April); rainy season (May-October). People Population: 11.2 million; 70% urban, 30% rural. Ethnic groups: 51% mulatto, 37% white, 11% black, 1% Chinese (according to Cuban census data). Language: Spanish. Literacy--97% (according to Cuban government sources). Work force (4.87 million): Services--4%; industry--13%; agriculture--20%; science and technology--1%; construction--5%; education--12%; health and social services--12%. Government Type: Totalitarian communist state; current government assumed power by force January 1, 1959. Independence: May 20, 1902. Political party: Cuban Communist Party (PCC); only one party allowed. Administrative subdivisions: 14 provinces, including the city of Havana, and one special municipality (Isle of Youth). Economy GDP (2007 est., based on constant 1997 prices): $47.35 billion. Real annual growth rate: 3.0% (2001); 1.5% (2002); 2.9% (2003); 3.0% (2004 est.); 7.8% (2005 est.); 9.5% (2006 est.); 5.8% (2007 est.). GDP per capita income (2007 est., based on constant 1997 prices): $4,200. Average monthly salary: $17. Natural resources: Nickel, cobalt, iron ore, copper, manganese, salt, timber, oil, natural gas. Agriculture: Products--sugar, citrus and tropical fruits, tobacco, coffee, rice, beans, meat, vegetables. Industry: Types--sugar and food processing, oil refining, cement, electric power, light consumer and industrial products, pharmaceutical and biotech products. Trade: Exports (2007)--$3.701 billion f.o.b.: nickel/cobalt, pharmaceutical and biotech products, sugar and its byproducts, tobacco, seafood, citrus, tropical fruits, coffee. Major export markets (2006)--Netherlands $774 million (28%); Canada $546 million (20%); Venezuela $296 million (11%); China $246 million (9%); Spain $149 million (5%); Russia $137 million (5%); Singapore $79 million (3%); France $51 million (2%); Bolivia $40 million (1%); Mexico $39 million (1%); others $402 million (15%). Imports (2007)--$10.083 billion f.o.b.: petroleum, food, machinery, chemicals. Major import suppliers (2006)--Venezuela $2.209 billion (24%); China $1.569 billion (17%); Spain $846 million (9%); Germany $616 million (7%);United States $484 (5%); Brazil $429 million (5%); Italy $409 million (4%); Canada $340 million (4%); Mexico $234 million (3%); Algeria $228 million (2%); France $197 million (2%); Vietnam $190 million (2%); Japan $175 million (2%); Russia $152 million (2%); Argentina $115 million (1%); others $1.227 billion (13%). Official exchange rate: Convertible pesos per U.S.$1 = 0.93. Cuba has two currencies in circulation: the Cuban peso (CUP), and the convertible peso (CUC). In April 2005, the official exchange rate changed from $1 per CUC to $1.08 per CUC (0.93 CUC per $1), both for individuals and enterprises. Individuals can buy 24 Cuban pesos (CUP) for each CUC sold, or sell 25 Cuban pesos for each CUC bought; enterprises, however, must exchange CUP and CUC at a 1:1 ratio. The Cuban Government taxes and receives approximately 10% of each conversion of U.S. dollars into CUCs. PEOPLE AND RELIGION Cuba is a multiracial society with a population of mainly Spanish and African origins. The largest organized religion is the Roman Catholic Church, but evangelical protestant denominations continue to grow rapidly. Afro-Cuban religions, a blend of native African religions and Roman Catholicism, are widely practiced in Cuba. Officially, Cuba has been an atheist state for most of the Castro era. In 1962, the government of Fidel Castro seized and shut down more than 400 Catholic schools, charging that they spread dangerous beliefs among the people. In 1991, however, the Communist Party lifted its prohibition against religious believers seeking membership, and a year later the constitution was amended to characterize the state as secular instead of atheist. While the Cuban constitution recognizes the right of citizens to freedom of religion, the government de facto restricts that freedom. Twenty-five denominations, including Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Methodists, are members of the Cuban Council of Churches (CCC). Most CCC members are officially recognized by the state, though several, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church, are not registered and are recognized only through their membership in the CCC. Another 31 officially recognized denominations, including Jehovah's Witnesses and the small Jewish community, do not belong to the CCC. The government does not favor any one particular religion or church; however, the government appears to be most tolerant of those churches that maintain close relations to the state through the CCC. Unregistered religious groups experience various degrees of official interference, harassment, and repression. The Ministry of Interior engages in active efforts to control and monitor the country's religious institutions, including through surveillance, infiltration, and harassment of religious professionals and practitioners. The most independent religious organizations--including the Catholic Church, the largest independent institution in Cuba today--continue to operate under significant restrictions and pressure imposed on them by the Cuban regime. The Cuban Government continues to refuse to allow the church to have independent printing press capabilities; full access to the media; to train enough priests for its needs or allow adequate numbers of foreign priests to work in the country; or to establish socially useful institutions, including schools and universities, hospitals and clinics, and nursing homes. All registered denominations must report to the Ministry of Interior's Office of Religious Affairs. The visit of Pope John Paul II in January 1998 was seen as an important, positive event for bringing a message of hope and the need for respect of human rights. Unfortunately, these improvements did not continue once the Pope left the island. While some visas were issued for additional priests to enter Cuba around the time of the visit, the regime has again sharply restricted issuance of visas. Moreover, despite explicit regime guarantees and repeated follow-up requests, the regime has refused to permit the Catholic Church to establish Internet connections or an intranet among dioceses on the Island. In a pastoral letter entitled "There is No Country Without Virtue" ("No Hay Patria Sin Virtud"), the Cuban Conference of Catholic Bishops in February 2003 openly criticized the government's strict control over the activities of the Catholic Church, especially state restrictions on religious education and Church access to mass media, as well as the increasingly amoral and irreligious character of Cuban society under Communist rule. In 2007-2008 the government permitted the Catholic Church to broadcast Christmas and Holy Week messages. The Vatican and the Catholic Church are still pressing for more access to the media. The Cuban Government in 2007, for the first time since the revolution, declared Christmas Day a holiday. Other Cuban religious groups--including evangelical Christians, whose numbers continue to grow rapidly--also have benefited from the relative relaxation of official restrictions on religious organizations and activities. Although particularly hard hit by emigration, Cuba's small Jewish community continues to hold services in Havana and has members in Santiago, Camaguey, and other parts of the island. See also the Department's report on international religious freedom for further information. HISTORY Spanish settlers established the raising of cattle, sugarcane, and tobacco as Cuba's primary economic pursuits. As the native Indian population died out, African slaves were imported to work the ranches and plantations. Slavery was abolished in 1886. Cuba was the last major Spanish colony to gain independence, following a lengthy struggle begun in 1868. Jose Marti, Cuba's national hero, helped initiate the final push for independence in 1895. In 1898, the United States entered the conflict after the USS Maine sank in Havana Harbor on February 15 due to an explosion of undetermined origin. In December of that year, Spain relinquished control of Cuba to the United States with the Treaty of Paris. On May 20, 1902, the United States granted Cuba its independence but retained the right to intervene to preserve Cuban independence and stability in accordance with the Platt Amendment. In 1934, the Platt Amendment was repealed. The United States and Cuba concluded a Treaty of Relations in 1934 which, among other things, continued the 1903 agreements that leased the Guantanamo Bay naval base to the United States. Independent Cuba was often ruled by authoritarian political and military figures who either obtained or remained in power by force. Fulgencio Batista, an army sergeant, organized a non-commissioned officer revolt in September 1933 and wielded significant power behind the scenes until he was elected president in 1940. Batista was voted out of office in 1944 and did not run in 1948. Both those elections were won by civilian political figures with the support of party organizations. Running for president again in 1952, Batista seized power in a bloodless coup 3 months before the election was to take place, suspended the balloting, and began ruling by decree. Many political figures and movements that wanted a return to the government according to the constitution of 1940 disputed Batista's undemocratic rule. On July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro, who had been involved in increasingly violent political activity before Batista's coup, led a failed attack on the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba in which more than 100 died. After defending himself in a trial open to national and international media, he was convicted and jailed, and subsequently was freed in an act of clemency, before going into exile in Mexico. There he organized the "26th of July Movement" with the goal of overthrowing Batista, and the group sailed to Cuba on board the yacht Granma, landing in the eastern part of the island in December 1956. Batista's dictatorial rule fueled increasing popular discontent and the rise of many active urban and rural resistance groups, a fertile political environment for Castro's 26th of July Movement. Faced with a corrupt and ineffective military--itself dispirited by a U.S. Government embargo on weapons sales to Cuba--and public indignation and revulsion at his brutality toward opponents, Batista fled on January 1, 1959. Although he had promised a return to constitutional rule and democratic elections along with social reforms, Castro used his control of the military to consolidate his power by repressing all dissent from his decisions, marginalizing other resistance figures, and imprisoning or executing thousands of opponents. An estimated 3,200 people were executed by the Castro regime between 1959-62 alone. As the revolution became more radical, hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled the island. Castro declared Cuba a socialist state on April 16, 1961. For the next 30 years, Castro pursued close relations with the Soviet Union and worked in concert with the geopolitical goals of Soviet communism, funding and fomenting violent subversive and insurrectional activities, as well as military adventurism, until the demise of the U.S.S.R. in 1991. Relations between the United States and Cuba deteriorated rapidly as the Cuban regime expropriated U.S. properties and moved toward adoption of a one-party communist system. In response, the United States imposed an embargo on Cuba in October 1960, and, in response to Castro's provocations, broke diplomatic relations on January 3, 1961. Tensions between the two governments peaked during the October 1962 missile crisis. GOVERNMENT Cuba is a totalitarian communist state controlled by General Raul Castro and a cadre of party loyalists. Raul Castro replaced his brother Fidel Castro as chief of state, president of Cuba, and commander-in-chief of the armed forces on February 24, 2008. In March 2003, Fidel Castro had announced his intention to remain in power for life, but he became incapacitated on July 31, 2006. While Fidel Castro is still nominally the First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC), Raul Castro, as its Second Secretary, is fully in charge of this political body and has announced that a new party congress will be held toward the end of 2009, the first to be held since 1997. The Ministry of Interior is the principal organ of state security and control. The Castro regime seeks to control most aspects of Cuban life through the Communist Party and its affiliated mass organizations, the government bureaucracy, and the state security apparatus. According to the Soviet-style Cuban constitution of 1976, the National Assembly of People's Power, and its Council of State when the body is not in session, has supreme authority in the Cuban system. Since the National Assembly meets only twice a year for a few days each time, the 31-member Council of State wields power. The Council of Ministers, through its 9-member executive committee, handles the administration of the economy, which is state-controlled except for a tiny open-market sector. Raul Castro is President of the Council of State and Council of Ministers, and Jose Ramon Machado Ventura serves as First Vice President of both bodies. Although the constitution theoretically provides for independent courts, it explicitly subordinates them to the National Assembly and to the Council of State. The People's Supreme Court is the highest judicial body. Due process is routinely denied to Cuban citizens, particularly in cases involving political offenses. The constitution states that all legally recognized civil liberties can be denied to anyone who opposes the "decision of the Cuban people to build socialism." Citizens can be and have been jailed for terms of 3 years or more for simply criticizing the communist system or Fidel Castro. Under the law of "dangerousness," citizens can be jailed for up to 4 years if a police official thinks that they show "anti-social behavior." The Communist Party is constitutionally recognized as Cuba's only legal political party. The party monopolizes all government positions, including judicial offices. Though not a formal requirement, party membership is a de facto prerequisite for high-level official positions and professional advancement in most areas. A small number of non-party members have been permitted by the controlling Communist authorities to serve in the National Assembly. The Communist Party or one of its front organizations approves candidates for all elected offices. Citizens do not have the right to change their government. In March 2003, the government carried out one of the most brutal crackdowns on peaceful opposition in the history of Cuba when it arrested 75 human rights activists, independent journalists and opposition figures on various charges, ranging from aiding a foreign power to violating national security laws. Authorities subjected the detainees to summary trials and sentenced them to prison terms ranging from 6 to 28 years. Amnesty International identified all 75 as "prisoners of conscience." As of August 2008, 55 of the original 75 prisoners remained incarcerated. See also the Department's Country Report on Human Rights Practices for Cuba. Although the constitution allows legislative proposals backed by at least 10,000 citizens to be submitted directly to the National Assembly, in 2002 the government rejected a petition known as the Varela Project, supporters of which submitted 11,000 signatures calling for a national referendum on political and economic reforms. Many of the 75 activists arrested in March 2003 participated in the Varela Project. In October 2003, Project Varela organizers submitted a second petition to the National Assembly with an additional 14,000 signatures. Since April 2004, some prisoners of conscience have been released, 20 of whom were in the group of 75 and four of whom along with their families were exiled to Spain. All suffered from moderate to severe medical conditions and many of them continue to be harassed by state security even after their release from prison. In April 2008, a government-sponsored mob assaulted a group of Damas de Blanco (Women in White) who were peacefully demanding the release of political prisoners. The following month, the government broke up a dissident-led, symbolic funeral honoring the death Pedro Luis Boitel, a student activist. NATIONAL SECURITY Cuba is a highly militarized society. From 1975 until the late 1980s, massive Soviet military assistance enabled Cuba to upgrade its military capabilities and project power abroad. The tonnage of Soviet military deliveries to Cuba throughout most of the 1980s exceeded deliveries in any year since the military build-up during the 1962 missile crisis. With the loss of Soviet-era subsidies in the early 1990s, Cuba's armed forces have shrunk considerably, both in terms of numbers and assets. Combined active duty troop strength for all three services is estimated at 50,000 to 55,000 personnel (compared to some 235,000 on active duty 10 years ago) and much of Cuba's weaponry appears to be in storage. Cuba's air force, once considered among the best equipped in Latin America, no longer merits that distinction, though it still possesses advanced aircraft and weapons systems; the navy has become primarily a coastal defense force with no blue water capability. The Cuban army is still one of the region's more formidable, but it also is much reduced and no longer has the considerable resources necessary to project power abroad. The military plays a dominant role in the economy and manages a number of hotels in the tourist sector. The country's two paramilitary organizations, the Territorial Militia Troops and the Youth Labor Army, have a reduced training capability. Cuba also adopted a "war of the people" strategy that highlights the defensive nature of its capabilities. The government continues to maintain a large state security apparatus under the Ministry of Interior to repress dissent within Cuba, and in the last decade has formed special forces units to confront indications of popular unrest. ECONOMY The Cuban Government continues to adhere to socialist principles in organizing its state-controlled economy. Most of the means of production are owned and run by the government and, according to Cuban Government statistics, about 75% of the labor force is employed by the state. The actual figure is closer to 93%, with some 150,000 small farmers and another 150,000 "cuentapropistas," or holders of licenses for self-employment, representing a mere 2.1% of the nearly 4.87 million-person workforce. The Cuban economy is still recovering from a decline in gross domestic product of at least 35% between 1989 and 1993 as the loss of Soviet subsidies laid bare the economy's fundamental weaknesses. To alleviate the economic crisis, in 1993 and 1994 the government introduced a few market-oriented reforms, including opening to tourism, allowing foreign investment, legalizing the dollar, and authorizing self-employment for some 150 occupations. These measures resulted in modest economic growth; the official statistics, however, are deficient and as a result provide an incomplete measure of Cuba's real economic situation. Living conditions at the end of the decade remained well below the 1989 level. Lower sugar and nickel prices, increases in petroleum costs, a post-September 11, 2001 decline in tourism, devastating hurricanes in November 2001 and August 2004, and a major drought in the eastern half of the island caused severe economic disruptions. Growth rates continued to stagnate in 2002 and 2003, while 2004 and 2005 showed some renewed growth. Moreover, the gap in the standard of living has widened between those with access to dollars and those without. Jobs that can earn dollar salaries or tips from foreign businesses and tourists have become highly desirable. It is not uncommon to see doctors, engineers, scientists, and other professionals working in restaurants or as taxi drivers. The government of Raul Castro announced several initiatives designed to increase revenues to the Cuban state by formalizing some business activities which were previously conducted in informal and illegal markets. Even in doing so, the Cuban Government is seeking tighter state control over the economy. The Cuban Government is aggressively pursuing a policy of recentralization, making it increasingly difficult for foreigners to conduct business on the island. Likewise, Cuban citizens are adversely affected by reversion to a peso economy and the dual currency regime in which Cubans are paid in pesos, but many goods are sold in "convertible pesos," worth approximately 23 times the regular peso. In his February 24, 2008, inaugural address, Raul Castro said the Cuban Government would "advance in an articulate, sound and well-thought out manner" a series of measures that would raise the Cuban standard of living and tie individual prosperity to individual initiative and work performance. Castro also referred to excess "prohibitions and regulations," the simplest of which the Cuban Government would start removing "in the next few weeks." More complex "reforms," he said, could only be introduced after changes to certain legal regulations. This followed Castro's July 26, 2007, speech on economic development, in which he asserted that tackling problems in milk production would address some of Cuba's main economic challenges. On July 12, 2008, Raul Castro placed caveats on many of these initiatives by noting that global economic factors may delay implementation, including for wage increases for Cubans. In his speech marking the 55th anniversary of the start of the Cuban revolution on July 26, 2008, Raul Castro further tamped down expectations for change by warning that the global economy could delay his economic adjustments. Since February 24, Raul Castro's government has announced it would pursue the following initiatives: Expanding access to public land for private farmers; permitting some Cubans to own their homes, increasing wages and retirement pensions; raising the retirement age; upgrading public transportation systems and infrastructure; licensing private taxis to operate; limited deregulation of the construction industry; expanding access to certain previously restricted consumer goods (like cell phones, computers, microwaves, toasters, DVD players, motorcycles, air conditioners, electric ovens, and agricultural supplies and tools), consolidation and modernization of Cuba's family doctor program, and launching a new 24-hour television station to include mostly foreign-produced content. Many of these initiatives, if implemented, would authorize activities that are already underway in Cuba's informal economy. Prolonged austerity and the state-controlled economy's inefficiency in providing adequate goods and services have created conditions for a flourishing informal economy in Cuba. As the variety and amount of goods available in state-run peso stores has declined, Cubans have turned increasingly to the black market to obtain needed food, clothing, and household items. Pilferage of items from the work place to sell on the black market or illegally offering services on the sidelines of official employment is common, and Cuban companies regularly figure 15% in losses into their production plans to cover this. Recognizing that Cubans must engage in such activity to make ends meet and that attempts to shut the informal economy down would be futile, the government concentrates its control efforts on ideological appeals against theft and shutting down large organized operations. A report by an independent economist and opposition leader speculates that more than 40% of the Cuban economy operates in the informal sector. Since 2005, the government has carried out a large anti-corruption campaign as it continues efforts to recentralize much of the economy under the regime's control. Sugar, which has been the mainstay of the island's economy for most of its history, has fallen upon troubled times. In 1989, production was more than 8 million tons, but by the mid-1990s, it had fallen to around 3.5 million tons. Inefficient planting and cultivation methods, poor management, shortages of spare parts, and poor transportation infrastructure combined to deter the recovery of the sector. In June 2002, the government announced its intention to implement a "comprehensive transformation" of this declining sector. Almost half the existing sugar mills were closed, and more than 100,000 workers were laid off. The government has promised that these workers will be "retrained" in other fields, though it is unlikely they will find new jobs in Cuba's stagnant economy. Moreover, despite such efforts, the sugar harvest continued to decline, falling to 2.1 million tons in 2003, the smallest since 1933. According to government reports, the harvest was not much better in 2004 (2.3 million tons), and continued to slide in 2005 (1.3 million tons), 2006 (1.2 million tons), and 2007 (approximately 1 million tons). According to government projections, Cuba expects to meet domestic sugar demand in 2009 for the first time after a major restructuring in 2002. Tourism figures prominently in the Cuban Government's plans for development, and a top official cast it as at the "heart of the economy." Havana devotes significant resources to building new tourist facilities and renovating historic structures for use in the tourism sector. Roughly 1.7 million tourists visited Cuba in 2001, generating about $1.85 billion in gross revenues; in 2003, the number rose to 1.9 million tourists, predominantly from Canada and the European Union (EU), generating revenue of $2.1 billion. In 2004, the number of tourists to Cuba crossed the 2 million mark (2.05 million), including the so-called "medical tourists" from other Latin American countries seeking medical treatment at Cuban facilities. Since 2004, the volume of tourists has remained relatively consistent, at 2.32 million (2005), 2.2 million (2006), and 2.1 million (2007). During the first quarter of 2008 there was a 15% increase in tourists compared to the first quarter of 2007, according to the Caribbean Tourism Organization. According to the Cuban Ministry of the Basic Industry (MINBAS), nickel became the leading export and the top foreign exchange earner in 2007, valued at approximately $2.7 billion. Nickel extraction in 2007 was 2.2% higher than in 2006. The main market for nickel exports is China. Cuba produced between 75,000 and 76,000 tons of nickel in 2007. The Cuban Government predicted that nickel and cobalt production would reach a record 80,000 tons in 2008. Cuba's pharmaceutical industry generated $350 million in exports in 2007, ranking second in foreign sales behind nickel and ahead of traditional products such as tobacco, rum, and sugar. Remittances also play a large role in Cuba's economy. Cuba does not publish accurate economic statistics, but academic sources estimate that remittances total from $600 million to $1 billion per year, with most coming from families in the United States. U.S. regulation changes announced in June 2004 allow remittances to be sent only to the remitter's immediate family; they cannot be remitted to certain Cuban Government officials and members of the Cuban Communist Party; and the total amount of family remittances that an authorized traveler may carry to Cuba is now $300, reduced from $3,000. (See also the Commission on Assistance to a Free Cuba report at http://www.cafc.gov, cited below.) The Cuban Government captures these dollar remittances by allowing Cuban citizens to shop in state-run "dollar stores," which sell food, household, and clothing items at a high mark-up averaging over 240% of face value. Beginning in November 2004, the government mandated that U.S. dollars be exchanged for "convertible pesos"--a local currency that can be used in special shops on the island but has no value internationally--for a 10% charge. The 10% conversion fee disproportionately affects Cubans who receive remittances from relatives in the U.S. To help keep the economy afloat, Cuba has actively courted foreign investment, which often takes the form of joint ventures with the Cuban Government holding half of the equity, management contracts for tourism facilities, or financing for the sugar harvest. A new legal framework laid out in 1995 allowed for majority foreign ownership in joint ventures with the Cuban Government. In practice, majority ownership by the foreign partner is nonexistent. Of the 540 joint ventures formed since the Cuban Government issued the first legislation on foreign investment in 1982, 397 remained at the end of 2002, and 287 at the close of 2005. Due in large part to the government's recentralization efforts, it is estimated that one joint venture and two small cooperative production ventures have closed each week since 2000. Responding to this decline in the number of joint ventures, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Investment explained that foreign investment is not a pillar of development in and of itself. Moreover, the hostile investment climate, characterized by inefficient and overpriced labor imposed by the Communist government, dense regulations, and an impenetrable bureaucracy, continue to deter foreign investment. Foreign direct investment flows decreased from $448 million in 2000 to $39 million in 2001 and were at zero in 2002. In July 2002, the European Union, through its embassies in Havana, transmitted to the Cuban Government a document that outlined the problems encountered in operating joint ventures in Cuba. Titled "The Legal and Administrative Framework for Foreign Trade and Investment by European Companies in Cuba," the paper noted the difficulty in obtaining such basic necessities as work and residence permits for foreign employees--even exit visas and drivers licenses. It complained that the Government of Cuba gave EU joint venture partners little or no say in hiring Cuban staff, often forced the joint venture to contract employees who were not professionally suitable, and yet reserved to itself the right to fire any worker at any time without cause. It noted administrative difficulties in securing financing and warned that "the difficulties of state firms in meeting their payment obligations are seriously threatening some firms and increasing the risk premium which all operators have to pay for their operations with Cuba." The Cuban Government offered no response. Investors are also constrained by the U.S.-Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act that provides sanctions for those who "traffic" in property expropriated from U.S. citizens. More than a dozen companies have pulled out of Cuba or altered their plans to invest there due to the threat of action under the Libertad Act. In an attempt to provide jobs for workers laid off due to the economic crisis and bring some forms of black market activity into more controllable channels, the Cuban Government in 1993 legalized self-employment for some 150 occupations. This small private sector is tightly controlled and regulated. Set monthly fees must be paid regardless of income earned, and frequent inspections yield stiff fines when any of the many self-employment regulations are violated. Rather than expanding private sector opportunities, in recent years, the government has been attempting to squeeze more of these private sector entrepreneurs out of business and back to the public sector. Many have opted to enter the informal economy or black market, and others have closed. These measures reduced private sector employment from a peak of 209,000 to less than 100,000. Moreover, a large number of those people who nominally are self-employed in reality are well-connected fronts for military officials. No recent figures have been made available, but the Government of Cuba reported at the end of 2001 that tax receipts from the self-employed fell 8.1% due to the decrease in the number of these taxpayers. Since October 1, 2004, the Cuban Government no longer issues new licenses for 40 of the approximately 150 categories of self-employment, including for the most popular ones, such as private restaurants. In June 2005, 2,000 more licenses were revoked from self-employed workers as a means to reassert government control over the economy and to stem growing inequalities associated with self-employment. The licenses for self-employed workers were typically for service-oriented work, allowing the Cuban people to eke out a small living in an otherwise impoverished state. Moreover, workers in Cuba's tourist sector--at resorts where native Cubans are prohibited unless they are on the job--have been prohibited by a Ministry of Tourism regulation from accepting gifts, tips, or even food from foreigners, in a further attempt at increasing the tourist apartheid that exists on the island. A 2004 UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) report recommended that Cuba "redesign the parameters of competition in the public, private and cooperative sectors redefine the role of the state in the economy." It recommended more flexibility in self-employment regulations, property diversification, economic decentralization, and a role for the market. The Cuban Government, however, is today reversing the economic liberalization of the 1990s and re-centralizing its economy. Evidence of this is found in the decline in the number of firms participating in the perfeccionamiento empresarial, or entrepreneurial improvement (EI), program, which is based on capitalist management techniques. EI was instituted in the 1980s as a military-led pilot project, and in 1998, the Cuban Government extended it from military to civilian "parastatals," reportedly to foster capitalist competitiveness. At first, the government highlighted participating companies' achievements in cutting costs and boosting profitability and quality and suggested that the increased autonomy of state managers under EI was producing an efficient form of socialism with a strong link between pay and performance. However, many in the Communist Party, even Fidel Castro himself, resisted EI. Many of the original participants have since left the program and participating firms have seen little growth in revenue. The EI program has fallen far short of expectations and the Cuban Government no longer heralds its successes or its future prospects. In 2003 the Cuban Government also tightened foreign exchange controls, requiring that state companies hold money in convertible pesos and obtain special authorization from the central bank before making hard currency transactions. Practically speaking, this restricted companies from using the dollar for internal trade. Following this, in 2004 the government announced that all state entities must stop charging in U.S. dollars and charge only in pesos for any products and services not considered a part of a company's "fundamental social objective." It also recently implemented new requirements to channel imports through monopolistic Soviet-style wholesale distribution companies. Cuba's precarious economic position is complicated by the high price it must pay for foreign financing. The Cuban Government defaulted on most of its international debt in 1986 and does not have access to credit from international financial institutions like the World Bank, which means Havana must rely heavily on short-term loans to finance imports, chiefly food and fuel. Because of its poor credit rating, an $11 billion hard currency debt, and the risks associated with Cuban investment, interest rates have reportedly been as high as 22%. In 2002, citing chronic delinquencies and mounting short-term debts, Moody's lowered Cuba's credit rating to Caa1--"speculative grade, very poor." Dunn and Bradstreet rate Cuba as one of the riskiest economies in the world. HUMAN RIGHTS Cuba's totalitarian regime controls all aspects of life through the Communist Party and its affiliated mass organizations, the government bureaucracy, and State Security Department. The latter is tasked with monitoring, infiltrating, and controlling the country's beleaguered human rights community. Despite having signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in February 2008, Cuba ignores the obligations assumed in these treaties, continuing to commit serious abuses and denying its citizens the right to change their government. Cuba is also a signatory of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and sits on the UN Human Rights Council, yet routinely arrests citizens who seek to exercise internationally recognized fundamental freedoms. The government incarcerates people for their peaceful political beliefs or activities. The total number of political prisoners and detainees is unknown, because the government does not disclose such information and keeps its prisons off-limits to human rights organizations and international human rights monitors. There are an estimated 225 prisoners of conscience currently detained in Cuba in addition to as many as 5,000 people sentenced for "dangerousness." The government places severe limitations on freedom of speech and press, as noted by international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Reporters Without Borders. The constitution provides for freedom of speech and press insofar as views "conform to the aims of a socialist society." In March 2008, demonstrators distributing copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were attacked by an orchestrated mob and later detained. Despite the government's decision to permit Cubans to purchase personal computers, access to the Internet is strictly controlled and given only to those deemed ideologically trustworthy; Internet restrictions were tightened further in March and April 2008 to block access by Cuban citizens to certain independent websites. Freedom of assembly is not constitutionally guaranteed in Cuba. The law punishes unauthorized assembly of more than three persons. The government also restricts freedom of movement and prevents some citizens from emigrating because of their political views. Cubans need explicit "exit permission" from their government to leave their country, and many people are denied exit permission by the Cuban Government, despite the fact that they have received travel documents issued by other countries. Although Raul Castro has encouraged controlled forms of "constructive criticism," the Cuban Government continues to show little tolerance for unauthorized dissent. It often utilizes short-term detentions to break up peaceful marches and demonstrations. It sometimes harasses dissidents by directing militants from the Communist Party, the Communist Youth League, Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the Federation of Cuban Women, the Association of Veterans of the Cuban Revolution, and other groups to stage public protests against the dissident, usually in front of his/her residence. These protests, called "acts of repudiation," involve the shouting of insults and the occasional use of violence. The events generate intense fear and are aimed at ostracizing and intimidating those who challenge the government's policies. Prison conditions are harsh and life-threatening. Although physical torture is rare, cruel treatment of prisoners--particularly political prisoners and detainees--is common. Prison authorities frequently beat, neglect, isolate, and deny medical treatment to inmates. Authorities often deny family visits, adequate nutrition, exposure to sunshine, and pay for work. Overcrowding is rife. The Cuban Government routinely violates international core labor standards. The law does not allow Cuban workers to form and join unions of their choice. The government-approved unions do not act as trade unions, promote worker rights or protect the right to strike; rather, they are geared toward ensuring that production goals are met. Some workers lose their jobs because of their political beliefs. Salaries are not high enough to meet food and clothing costs; consequently, many Cubans resort to small-scale embezzlement or pilfering from their employers. FOREIGN RELATIONS Cuba's once-ambitious foreign policy has been scaled back and redirected as a result of economic hardship and the end of the Cold War. Cuba aims to find new sources of trade, aid, and foreign investment and to promote opposition to U.S. policy, especially the trade embargo and the 1996 Libertad Act. Cuba has relations with over 160 countries and has civilian assistance workers--principally physicians and nurses--in more than 20 nations. Since the end of Soviet backing, Cuba appears to have largely abandoned monetary support for guerrilla movements that typified its involvement in regional politics in Latin America and Africa, though it maintains relations with several guerrilla and terrorist groups and provides refuge for some of their members in Cuba. Cuba's support for Latin guerrilla movements, its Marxist-Leninist government, and its alignment with the U.S.S.R. led to its isolation in the hemisphere. Cuba is a member of the Organization of American States (OAS), although its present government has been excluded from participation since 1962 for incompatibility with the principles of the inter-American system. Cuba hosted the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in September 2006 and will hold the NAM presidency until 2009. In the context of the NAM and its ordinary diplomacy, Cuba has developed friendly relations with North Korea and rogue states like Iran. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Cuba expanded its military presence abroad, spending millions of dollars in exporting revolutions; deployments reached 50,000 troops in Angola, 24,000 in Ethiopia, 1,500 in Nicaragua, and hundreds more elsewhere. In Angola, Cuban troops, supported logistically by the U.S.S.R., backed the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in its effort to take power after Portugal granted Angola its independence. Cuban forces played a key role in Ethiopia's war against Somalia and remained there in substantial numbers as a garrison force for a decade. Cubans served in a non-combat advisory role in Mozambique and the Congo. Cuba also used the Congo as a logistical support center for Cuba's Angola mission. In the late 1980s, Cuba began to pull back militarily. Cuba unilaterally removed its forces from Ethiopia, met the timetable of the 1988 Angola-Namibia accords by completing the withdrawal of its forces from Angola before July 1991, and ended military assistance to Nicaragua following the Sandinistas' 1990 electoral defeat. EU-Cuban diplomatic relations have suffered as a result of the March 2003 crackdown on dissidents. In June 2004, EU members imposed restrictive measures on Cuba including inviting dissidents to national day celebrations and suspending high-level meetings between EU members and the Cuban Government. In January 2005, though, the restrictions were suspended in an effort to re-engage the regime as a means of advancing the EU's policy of encouraging reform while preparing for the transition. The restrictive measures were formally dropped in June 2008, but the EU established a set of benchmarks to track the Cuban Government's performance on human rights. Canada maintains a robust trade and investment relationship with Cuba, with a large presence by the Sherritt Corp. in nickel mining. Some Sherritt operations take place on property confiscated from American investors, subjecting officers of Sherritt to Libertad Act sanctions. Canada is also the source of the largest number of foreign tourists who visit Cuba each year. Spain is among the most important foreign investors in Cuba. The ruling Zapatero government continues Spain's longstanding policy of encouraging further investment and trade with Cuba. Cuba imports more goods from Spain (almost 13% of total imports) than from any other country. Spanish economic involvement with Cuba is exclusively centered on joint venture enterprises that provide financial benefit to the Cuban Government through state-owned firms. Spain's desire to provide support to its business community often impedes its willingness to pressure the Cuban Government on political reform and human rights issues. Cuba's bilateral relationship with Venezuela has helped keep the Cuban economy afloat. The "Integral Cooperation Accord" signed by Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in October 2000 laid the groundwork for a quasi-barter exchange of Venezuelan oil for Cuban goods and services that has since become a lifeline for Cuba. For Cuba, the benefits of the cooperation accord are subsidized petroleum and increased hard currency flows. The original agreement allowed for the sale, at market prices, of up to 53,000 barrels per day of crude oil and derivatives (diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, etc.) by PDVSA, Venezuela's state-owned petroleum company, to its Cuban counterpart, CUPET. The number of barrels of oil Venezuela began selling to Cuba has risen to over 90,000 barrels daily. Under the accord, PDVSA extended preferential payment terms to CUPET, including 90-day short-term financing instead of the 30 days offered to its other customers and, in lieu of a standard letter of credit backed by an international bank, PDVSA accepted IOUs from Cuba's Banco Nacional, the central banking entity responsible for servicing Havana's foreign debt. In August 2001, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez amended the 2000 accord to allow Venezuela to compensate the Cuban Government in hard currency for any and all Cuban products and services originally intended as in-kind payment for Venezuelan oil. As a result, Cuban exports of goods and services to Venezuela climbed from $34 million in 2001 to more than $150 million in 2003. Venezuelan ministries are contracting with Cuba for everything from generic pharmaceuticals to pre-fabricated housing and dismantled sugar mill equipment. On April 28, 2005, Chavez and Castro signed 49 economic agreements in Havana, covering areas as diverse as oil, nickel, agriculture, furniture, shoes, textiles, toys, lingerie, tires, construction materials, electricity, transportation, health, and education. Venezuela is also committed to sending more than $400 million in various products duty-free to Cuba and plans to open an office of state-owned commercial Venezuelan Industrial Bank (BIV) in Havana to finance imports and exports between the two countries, while Cuba will open an official Banco Exterior de Cuba in Caracas. Increased economic engagement along with the rapid growth in Cuban sales to Caracas has established Venezuela as one of the island's largest export markets. A series of recent economic agreements between Cuba and China have strengthened trade between the two countries. Sino-Cuban trade totaled more than $525 million in 2004, according to China Customs statistics. This represents an increase of more than 47% over 2003. Most of China's aid involves in-kind supply of goods or technical assistance. During President Hu-Jintao's visit to Cuba in November 2004, China signed investment-related memorandums of understanding (MOUs) estimated at more than $500 million, according to press reports. If these MOUs are fully realized, they would represent a sharp increase in known Chinese investments in Cuba. In addition to these MOUs, a number of commercial accords were signed at the first-ever Cuba-China Investment and Trade Forum. China also plans to invest approximately $500 million in a nickel operation in Moa in the eastern province of Holguin. According to the MOU, Cuba will own 51% of the enterprise and Chinese-owned Minmetals the remaining 49%. Chinese and Venezuelan economic support, including investment and direct aid, have given Cuba the space to eliminate many of the tentative open market reforms Cuba put in place during the depth of its mid-1990s economic crisis. The Russian prime minister visited Cuba in October 2006, signaling a new effort to expand trade and investment, albeit financed by Russian credit. Russia set aside, for the moment, more than U.S. $20 billion in Soviet-era debt, restructured post-1991 debt, and extended a new credit line to Cuba. The new credit line is for U.S. $355 million repayable over 10 years at an interest rate of 5%. The new credit is conditioned in that it must be used to purchase Russian cars, trucks, and planes, as well as to finance Cuban energy and transport infrastructure projects, including air navigation systems. Russia further agreed to restructure U.S. $166 million in debt accumulated since 1993. Both nations also signed an agreement on military equipment and technical services. U.S.-CUBAN RELATIONS On May 20, 2002, President Bush announced the Initiative for a New Cuba that called on the Cuban Government to undertake political and economic reforms and conduct free and fair elections for the National Assembly. The initiative challenged the Cuban Government to open its economy, allow independent trade unions, and end discriminatory practices against Cuban workers. President Bush made clear that his response to such concrete reforms would be to work with the U.S. Congress to ease the restrictions on trade and travel between the United States and Cuba. The Cuban Government did not enact any such reforms. Instead, elections for the National Assembly were held in January 2003, with 609 government-approved candidates running for 609 seats. That was followed by the March crackdown on members of civil society. In October 2003, President Bush created the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba to help the Cuban people achieve the goal of a rapid, peaceful transition to democracy that is strongly supportive of fundamental political and economic freedoms. Its mandate is to identify additional measures to help bring an end to the dictatorship and to lay out a plan for effective and decisive U.S. assistance to a post-dictatorship Cuba, should such be requested by a free Cuba. The commission report outlines how the United States would be prepared to help a free Cuba improve infrastructure and the environment; consolidate the transition and help build democracy; meet the basic needs of the Cuban people in health, education, housing, and social services; and create the core institutions of a free economy. These recommendations are not a prescription for Cuba's future, but an indication of the kind of assistance the United States and the international community should be prepared to offer a free Cuba. The commission also sought a more proactive, integrated, and disciplined approach to undermine the survival strategies of the Castro regime and contribute to conditions that will help the Cuban people hasten the dictatorship's end. The recommendations focus on actions available to the United States Government, allowing it to establish a strong foundation on which to build supportive international efforts. This comprehensive framework is composed of six interrelated tasks considered central to hastening change: empowering Cuban civil society; breaking the Cuban Government's information blockade on the Cuban people; denying resources to the regime; illuminating the reality of Castro's Cuba to the rest of the world; encouraging international diplomatic efforts to support Cuban civil society and challenge the Castro regime; and finally, undermining the regime's "succession strategy." The Commission released its latest report in July 2006 (www.cafc.gov) as well as the "Compact with the Cuban People." The Compact with the Cuban People is a message of hope from the United States to the people of Cuba and a clear statement of principles to reassure Cubans that the U.S. stands with them in their desire for freedom. The Second Report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba (CAFC II) sets forth specific assistance and programs the United States can offer to advance freedom and democracy in Cuba. The recommendations include $80 million over the following two fiscal years to support these activities. Over the past decade, the regime has built an apparatus designed to exploit humanitarian aspects of U.S. policy, specifically to siphon off hundreds of millions of dollars for itself. To deny resources to the regime, U.S. law enforcement authorities have been directed to conduct "sting" operations against "mule" networks and others who illegally carry money and to offer rewards to those who report on illegal remittances that lead to enforcement actions; family visits to Cuba have been limited to one trip every 3 years under a specific license (individuals are eligible to apply for a specific license 3 years after their last visit to Cuba); and the current authorized per diem amount (the authorized amount allowed for food and lodging expenses for travel in Cuba) has been reduced from $164 per day to $50 per day (i.e., approximately eight times what a Cuban national would expect to earn during a 14-day visit) for all family visits to Cuba, based on the presumption that travelers will stay with family in Cuba. U.S. policy also pursues a multilateral effort to press for democratic change by urging its friends and allies to actively promote a democratic transition and respect for human rights. The United States opposes consideration of Cuba's return to the OAS or inclusion in the Summit of the Americas process until there is a democratic Cuban Government. The United States has repeatedly made clear, however, that it is prepared to respond reciprocally if the Cuban Government initiates fundamental, systematic, democratic change and respect for human rights. Cuba is on the State Department's worldwide list of state sponsors of terrorism, and as a result is subject to additional sanctions. All U.S. travel to Cuba must be licensed by the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), and must fall into one of ten categories. Further information on the licensing process can be obtained from OFAC or at their website. All exports to Cuba must also be licensed by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). Further information on exports to Cuba can be found at the BIS website. Principal U.S. Interests Section Officials Chief of Mission--Jonathan Farrar Deputy Chief of Mission--James (Buddy) Williams Political/Economic Counselor--James Benson Consul General--Sean Murphy Public Affairs Officer--Greg Adams Management Officer--Karen Sullivan The U.S. Interests Section is located at Calzada between L & M Streets, Vedado, Havana, switchboard: (53-7) 33-3551-3559, fax/general: 33-3700. U.S. Information Service: 33-3967 fax: 33-3869, hours: 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Emergencies/after hours: 33-3026. TRAVEL AND BUSINESS INFORMATION The U.S. Department of State's Consular Information Program advises Americans traveling and residing abroad through Country Specific Information, Travel Alerts, and Travel Warnings. Country Specific Information exists for all countries and includes information on entry and exit requirements, currency regulations, health conditions, safety and security, crime, political disturbances, and the addresses of the U.S. embassies and consulates abroad. Travel Alerts are issued to disseminate information quickly about terrorist threats and other relatively short-term conditions overseas that pose significant risks to the security of American travelers. Travel Warnings are issued when the State Department recommends that Americans avoid travel to a certain country because the situation is dangerous or unstable. For the latest security information, Americans living and traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs Internet web site at http://www.travel.state.gov, where the current Worldwide Caution, Travel Alerts, and Travel Warnings can be found. Consular Affairs Publications, which contain information on obtaining passports and planning a safe trip abroad, are also available at http://www.travel.state.gov. For additional information on international travel, see http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Travel/International.shtml. The Department of State encourages all U.S. citizens traveling or residing abroad to register via the State Department's travel registration website or at the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate abroad. Registration will make your presence and whereabouts known in case it is necessary to contact you in an emergency and will enable you to receive up-to-date information on security conditions. Emergency information concerning Americans traveling abroad may be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the U.S. and Canada or the regular toll line 1-202-501-4444 for callers outside the U.S. and Canada. The National Passport Information Center (NPIC) is the U.S. Department of State's single, centralized public contact center for U.S. passport information. Telephone: 1-877-4-USA-PPT (1-877-487-2778); TDD/TTY: 1-888-874-7793. Passport information is available 24 hours, 7 days a week. You may speak with a representative Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., Eastern Time, excluding federal holidays. Travelers can check the latest health information with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. A hotline at 800-CDC-INFO (800-232-4636) and a web site at http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/default.aspx give the most recent health advisories, immunization recommendations or requirements, and advice on food and drinking water safety for regions and countries. The CDC publication "Health Information for International Travel" can be found at http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/contentYellowBook.aspx. Further Electronic Information Department of State Web Site. Available on the Internet at http://www.state.gov, the Department of State web site provides timely, global access to official U.S. foreign policy information, including Background Notes and daily press briefings along with the directory of key officers of Foreign Service posts and more. The Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) provides security information and regional news that impact U.S. companies working abroad through its website http://www.osac.gov Export.gov provides a portal to all export-related assistance and market information offered by the federal government and provides trade leads, free export counseling, help with the export process, and more. STAT-USA/Internet, a service of the U.S. Department of Commerce, provides authoritative economic, business, and international trade information from the Federal government. The site includes current and historical trade-related releases, international market research, trade opportunities, and country analysis and provides access to the National Trade Data Bank. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=368_1239256546 ShadowankerdogKGB Cuba facts from State Dept. fantasy, alternate reality, lies, fraud, obama, black caucus, Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:03:05 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c73_1240966794 singlelife JOE SCARBOROUGH, GLENN BECK AND OTHERS ON OBAMA'S SHORT, ERROR-PRONE TIME IN OFFICE ________________________________________________________ 1. "Obama criticized pork barrel spending in the form of 'earmarks,' urging changes in the way that Congress adopts the spending proposals. Then he signed a spending bill that contains nearly 9,000 of them, some that members of his own staff shoved in last year when they were still members of Congress. 'Let there be no doubt, this piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business, and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability,' Obama said." -- McClatchy, 3/11 2. "There is no doubt that we've been living beyond our means and we're going to have to make some adjustments." -- Obama during the campaign. MORE: Obama's First 100 Days in Photos 3. This year's budget deficit: $1.5 trillion. 4. Asks his Cabinet to cut costs in their departments by $100 million -- a whopping .0027%! 5. "The White House says the president is unaware of the tea parties." -- ABC News, 4/15 6. "Mr. Obama is an accomplished orator but is becoming known in America as the 'teleprompt president' over his reliance on the machine when he gives a speech." -- Sky News, 3/18 7. In early February, the 2010 census was moved out of the Department of Commerce and into the White House, politicizing how federal aid is distributed and electoral districts are drawn. 8. Obama taps Nancy Killefer for a new administration job, First Chief Performance Officer -- to police government spending. But it surfaces that Killefer had performance issues of her own -- a tax lien was slapped on her DC home in 2005 for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help. She withdrew. 9. Turkey tried to block the appointment of Anders Fogh Rasmussen as new NATO secretary general because he didn't properly punish the Danish cartoonist who caricatured Mohammed. France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel were outraged; Obama said he supported Turkey's induction into the European Union. 10. . . . and he never mentioned the Armenian genocide. 11. The picture of Obama and Hugo Chavez shaking hands. 12. Hugo Chavez gave him the anti-American screed "The Open Veins of Latin America." Obama didn't remark upon it. At least it wasn't DVDs. 13. Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega went on a 50-minute anti-American rant, calling Obama "president of an empire." Obama didn't leave the room. "I thought it was 50 minutes long. That's what I thought," he said. 14. Executives at AIG get $165 million in bonuses, despite receiving an $173 billion taxpayer bailout. 15. "For months, the Obama administration and members of Congress have known that insurance giant AIG was getting ready to pay huge bonuses while living off government bailouts. It wasn't until the money was flowing and news was trickling out to the public that official Washington rose up in anger and vowed to yank the money back." -- Associated Press, 3/18 16. "After pushing Congress for weeks to hurry up and pass the massive $787 billion stimulus bill, President Obama promptly took off for a three-day holiday getaway." -- New York Post, 2/15 17. MEGHAN CLYNE ON: "I WON" AND THE DEATH OF BIPARTISANSHIP "Obama soared to victory on the hopeful promise of a new era of bipartisanship. During his inaugural address he even promised an 'end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.' "Too bad it took all of three days for the promise to ring hollow. "Start with Obama's big meeting with top congressional leaders on his signature legislation -- the stimulus -- on the Friday after his inauguration. Listening to Republican concerns about overspending was a nice gesture -- until he shut down any hopes of real dialogue by crassly telling Republican leaders: 'I won.' Even the White House's leaking of the comment was a slap at the Republican leadership, who'd expected Obama to adhere to the custom of keeping private meetings with congressional leadership, well, private. "It's only gone downhill from there. The stimulus included zero Republican recommendations, and failed to get a single House Republican vote. "It's not just the tactic of using Republicans for bipartisan photo-ops, and then cutting them loose before partisan decisions, that irks Obama's opponents. The new president wasted no time rushing forward with policies and legislation guaranteed to drive Republicans nuts. The first bill he signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act -- a partisan hot-button that drew all of eight Republican supporters in the entire Congress. Then there was the swift reversal of Bush policies on abortion and embryonic-stem-cell research -- issues dear to the Republican base. "And when Obama and the Democrats in Congress took up SCHIP -- the children's health-insurance bill that Republicans say vastly expands government's role in health care -- they had an easy chance for real bipartisanship. After all, the bill had been hashed out in the previous Congress, and a bipartisan accord was reached before President Bush responded with a veto. Did the Obama team push for the compromise version in the 111th Congress? Nope. They went back to the drawing board, ramming through the Democrats' dream version. "Of course, the lack of bipartisanship isn't limited to Capitol Hill. Obama has taken gratuitous swipes at the Republicans who recently decamped Washington, blaming President Bush for everything from the economy and the war to the lack of sufficient puppies and rainbows. And who could forget the Rush Limbaugh flap -- in which Obama's top advisers, including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, orchestrated a public relations campaign meant to undermine the Republican National Committee chairman, Michael Steele, by framing talk-radio personality Limbaugh as the real head of the Republican Party. "For now, Obama's back-pedal on the bipartisanship promise just makes him look insincere. But the real consequences of the mistake will be felt soon enough. As Presidents Bush and Clinton could tell him, congressional majorities do change -- and at some point, Obama will need Republicans on his side. He'd be smart to spend his second 100 days making up for the serious snubs of his first." -- Meghan Clyne is a DC-based writer. 18. "The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today." -- Department of Homeland Security intelligence report 19. Nixes a "buy American" provision in the stimulus bill. 20. "Yes, Canada is not Mexico, it doesn't have a drug war going on. Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it's been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there." -- Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The 9/11 hijackers did not come across the Canada border 21. "The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for overhauling the health care system. The proposal is politically problematic for President Obama, however, since it is similar to one he denounced in the presidential campaign as 'the largest middle-class tax increase in history.' " -- New York Times, 3/14 22. JOE SCARBOROUGH ON: PROMOTING FEAR "During his historic inaugural speech, Barack Obama promised to usher in a transformational age where hope would replace fear, unity would overtake partisanship, and change would sweep aside the status quo. But early in President Obama's first 100 days it is obvious that the only thing that is changing is the Candidate of Change, himself. "The same politician who proclaimed during his inauguration that 'on this day we have chosen hope over fear' soon warned Americans that the US economy would be forever destroyed if the stimulus bill was voted down. "Why was it that same man who promised to put Americans' interests ahead of his own political ambitions chose instead to use the suffering of citizens to advance his agenda? "Maybe he was following the guidance of Rahm Emanuel, who famously said, 'You never want to waste a good crisis.' "They didn't. "The White House's warnings were so over-the-top that Bill Clinton felt compelled to warn the new president against making such grim pronouncements. Americans would quickly warn that the White House would not channel FDR's eternal optimism but rather embrace the gloomy worldview of Edgar Allen Poe. "The Candidate of Hope also quickly adopted the Nixonian worldview that Americans voted their fears rather than their hopes. Over Mr. Obama's first 100 days, that cynical calculation paid off politically for a White House that seemed most interested in appeasing the most liberal members of his Democratic Party. "I expected more from Barack Obama. For the sake of my country, I hope I get it from the new president over the next 100 days." -- Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" and author of "The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America's Promise" (Crown Forum), due out June 9. 23. Sanjay Gupta was in discussions to become Surgeon General, but the TV personality withdrew after he was criticized for his flimsy political record. 24. Rasmussen finds 58% of Americans believe the Obama administration's release of CIA memos endangers the national security of the United States. 25. Only 28% think the Obama administration should do any further investigating of how the Bush administration treated terrorism suspects. 26. "Obama thanked CIA employees for their work and said they're invaluable to national security. He explained his decision to release the memos, then told everyone not to feel bad because he was now acknowledging potential mistakes. Theirs, not his. 'That's how we learn,' Obama said, as though soothing a room full of fourth-graders." -- The Oklahoman, 4/23 27. By releasing the torture memos, Obama opened American citizens up to international tribunals. A UN lawyer said the US is obliged to prosecute lawyers who drafted the memos or else violate the Geneva Conventions. 28. In their first meeting, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave Obama a carved ornamental penholder from the timbers of the anti-slavery ship HMS Gannet. Obama gave him 25 DVDs that don't work in Europe. 29. TIM CARNEY ON: PICKING BILL RICHARDSON AS SECRETARY OF COMMERCE "Richardson's value in Obama's Cabinet had everything to do with appearances. First, he was the Hispanic pick. Second, because Richardson had run against Obama for President, tapping him for the Cabinet helped the media write the Obama-Lincoln comparisons by burnishing the 'Team of Rivals' image. "But Richardson withdrew before Obama was even inaugurated when news came out about a criminal investigation involving David Rubin, president of a firm named Chambers, Dunhill, Rubin & Co. (although there was no Chambers or Dunhill), who had donated at least $110,000 to Richardson's campaign committees and had also profited from $1.5 million in contracts from the state government. "This was an early warning sign about Obama's vetting process (various tax problems and the Daschle problem would reveal this as a theme), but picking Richardson to run Commerce also highlighted that Obama and Richardson's promise of 'public-private partnerships' -- such as Detroit bailouts, Wall Street bailouts, and green energy--was an open door for corruption and was at odds with Obama's promise to diminish the influence of lobbyists. "The Richardson mistake was one of Obama's first, and it was emblematic. Richardson embodied Obama's attention to self-image and the problems inherent in his vision of an intimate business-government connection." -- Tim Carney is a Washington Examiner columnist 30. Timothy Geithner nomination as Secretary of Treasury was almost torpedoed when it was discovered he had failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes. He also employed an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper. He was confirmed anyway. 31. . . . Not so lucky, Annette Nazareth, who was nominated for Deputy Treasury Secretary. She withdrew her name for undisclosed "personal reasons" after a monthlong probe into her taxes . . . 32. . . . or Caroline Atkinson, who withdrew as nominee for Undersecretary of International Affairs in Treasury Department, with a source blaming the long vetting process. Geithner still has a skeleton crew at Treasury, with no one qualified -- or willing -- to take jobs there. 33. "Barack Obama has been embroiled in a cronyism row after reports that he intends to make Louis Susman, one of his biggest fundraisers, the new US ambassador in London. The selection of Mr. Susman, a lawyer and banker from the president's hometown of Chicago, rather than an experienced diplomat, raises new questions about Mr Obama's commitment to the special relationship with Britain." -- Telegraph, 2/22 34. Obama's doom-and-gloom comments and budget bill push the Dow below 7,000, from which it's only recently recovered. 35. "You're sitting here. And you're -- you are laughing. You are laughing about some of these problems. Are people going to look at this and say, 'I mean, he's sitting there just making jokes about money--' How do you deal with -- I mean: Explain. Are you punch-drunk?" -- Steve Kroft, "60 Minutes," 3/22 36. "We have begun to modernize 75% of all federal building space, which has the potential to reduce long-term energy costs by billions of dollars on behalf of taxpayers. We are providing grants to states to help weatherize hundreds of thousands of homes, which will save the families that benefit about $350 each year. That's like a $350 tax cut." -- Obama, describing something that doesn't cut taxes. 37. "The Obama administration has directed defense officials to sign a pledge stating they will not share 2010 budget data with individuals outside the federal government." -- Defense News, 2/19 38. Backtracking on a campaign promise he made to black farmers, Obama significantly lowered the amount of money they could claim in a discrimination settlement against the Agricultural Department. "I can't figure out for the life of me why the president wouldn't want to implement a bill that he fought for as a US senator," said John Boyd, head of the National Black Farmers Association. 39. "I've been practicing bowling. I bowled a 129. It was like the Special Olympics or something." -- Obama on "The Tonight Show" 40. Obama lifts travel and remittance restrictions on Cuba. 41. Obama considers dropping the embargo on Cuba. 42. After warming signs from Raul Castro, Fidel Castro says Obama "misinterpreted" his brother's words, and that Cuba would not be willing to negotiate about human rights. 43. Obama is considering dropping a key demand to Iran, allowing it to keep nuclear facilities open during negotiations. 44. In a letter to Dmitri Medvedev, Obama offered to drop plans for a missile shield in Europe in exchange for Russia's help in resolving the nuclear weapons issue in Iran. 45. Medvedev said he would not "haggle" on Iran and the missile shield. 46. Obama asked Congress for an extra $83.4 billion to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a special funding measure of the kind he opposed while in the senate. As a candidate, Obama promised to cut the cost of military operations. 47. After trying to woo Europe as the "anti-Bush," Obama made an impassioned plea for more troops in Afghanistan. "Europe should not simply expect the United States to shoulder that burden alone," he said. "This is a joint problem it requires a joint effort." Only the UK offered substantial help, most others refused. 48. "While the online question portion of the White House town hall was open to any member of the public with an Internet connection, the five fully identified questioners called on randomly by the president in the East Room were anything but a diverse lot. They included: a member of the pro-Obama Service Employees International Union, a member of the Democratic National Committee who campaigned for Obama among Hispanics during the primary; a former Democratic candidate for Virginia state delegate who endorsed Obama last fall in an op-ed in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star; and a Virginia businessman who was a donor to Obama's campaign in 2008." -- Washington Post, 3/27 49. Obama bows to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at a G-20 meeting in London. 50. "It wasn't a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he's taller than King Abdullah." -- An Obama aide 51. DANA PERINO ON: REMAINING IN CAMPAIGN MODE "Has it really only been 100 days? In many ways it feels like a lot longer. "That's partly because the new administration remains in campaign mode most of the time. Now that's not in itself a bad thing if you can do that and accomplish your agenda. But what's happened is that a popular new president has laid out a very bold agenda in the midst of an economic crisis, and I don't think Congress is going to get a lot of work done on those big ticket items this year. They'll eke out a couple of small wins on issues like healthcare and maybe energy, but the Democrats will hail them as big victories. The Republicans have been working like a cohesive and loyal opposition party, and they need to continue to outline positive new ideas like the recent one to help grow American's savings. "The early stumbles on the administration's high profile nominations -- Daschle and Richardson for just to examples -- acted like weights around their ankles. In addition, the partisan shots from the White House were unbecoming and I don't think we'll see more of that. Our allies and our enemies -- heck, even we ourselves -- are trying to understand the new foreign policy direction, which in some ways seems to be change just for the sake of change. The next moves by the leaders of other countries -- like Iran, North Korea and Venezuela -- probably will prove that really not much will change just because America has a new president. "In many ways, it's the next 100 days that will tell us more about our new president and what he'll be able to accomplish than we can forecast based on the first 100 days." -- Dana Perino was White House press secretary in the Bush Administration 52. "We can't afford to make perfect the enemy of the absolutely necessary." -- Obama, describing the stimulus bill 53. Three candidates for ambassador to the Vatican -- including Caroline Kennedy -- were turned down by the Holy See because they supported abortion, according to reports. 54. After saying he wouldn't have lobbyists in his administration, Obama made 17 exceptions in the first two weeks in office. 55. . . . including Tom Daschle, who worked as a top lobbyist yet was going to be appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services -- until his failure to pay income taxes derailed his nomination. 56. For an April 14 speech at Georgetown, the administration asked the university to cover up all signs and symbols -- including the letters "IHS" in gold, a symbol for Jesus. 57. Samantha Power, who resigned from the Obama campaign after calling Hillary Rodham Clinton a "monster," was hired to a position on the National Security Council. 58. "Chicago has yet to recoup the $1.74 million cost of President Obama's victory celebration in Grant Park -- despite a burgeoning $50.5 million budget shortfall that threatens more layoffs and union concessions." -- Chicago Sun-Times, 2/20 59. Firing Rick Wagoner as president of GM. 60. Threatening to fire Vikram Pandit as CEO of Citigroup. 61. Threatening to fire anyone the administration doesn't like from any company. 62. Not adopting a dog from a shelter. 63. "The GAO study asserts that officials from most of the states surveyed 'expressed concerns regarding the lack of Recovery Act funding provided for accountability and oversight. Due to fiscal constraints, many states reported significant declines in the number of oversight staff -- limiting their ability to ensure proper implementation and management of Recovery Act funds.' " -- ABC News, 4/23 64. "The National Newspaper Publishers Association named Obama 'Newsmaker of the Year.' The president is to receive the award from the federation of black community newspapers in a White House ceremony this afternoon. The Obama White House has closed the press award ceremony to the press." -- Los Angeles Times, 3/20 65. "Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards." -- Attorney General Eric Holder 66. "I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any seances." -- Obama, on consulting with only "living" presidents 67. Obama quietly announced that he would not press for new labor and environmental regulations in the North American Free Trade Agreement, going back on a campaign promise. 68. NICOLE GELINAS ON: MISSPENT STIMULUS "One of Obama's most poignant missed opportunities was in not using the historic $787 million stimulus package to reorder state and local government's spending priorities. As states and cities continue to spend ceaselessly and without results on education and healthcare, they're crowding out investments in the physical infrastructure that the private sector needs to rebuild the economy. "In the stimulus, of the more than $200 billion that went directly to states and cities, nearly 70% went to education and healthcare spending. Only 24% went to infrastructure spending. "But the states and cities in the most trouble already spend way too much on education and healthcare, pushing taxes up and sending private industry away. They don't spend nearly enough on infrastructure, which attracts the private sector and builds the real economy. "As David Walker, former comptroller general of the US, said at the Regional Plan Association's annual meeting a week ago, nationwide, we are the 'highest in the world' on education. We are 'the highest in the world' on healthcare. 'Nobody comes even close.' On infrastructure, by contrast, we are 'below average' in both critical new investments and in much-needed maintenance spending. "And, as Democratic governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell said at the same conference, when President Dwight Eisenhower left office, infrastructure spending was about 12.5% of non-military domestic spending. Today, it's about 2.5%. "This shortfall is obvious to anyone who's ridden on an "express train" to the outer boroughs or driven on the Cross Bronx Expressway recently. But in New York, as elsewhere, the stimulus money has just allowed the state to ramp up spending on its wasteful, inhumane Medicaid program and its nosebleed public-school spending. "Meanwhile, the subways are about to crumble into oblivion -- taking the economy with them. The same is true of decaying infrastructure in California and in aging states across the nation. "The stimulus was a once-in-a-generation chance to change this. Instead, it made the situation worse." -- Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to City Journal 69. "The Justice Department is asking the Supreme Court to overrule Michigan v. Jackson, the 1986 Supreme Court decision that held that if police may not interrogate a defendant after the right to counsel has attached, if the defendant has a lawyer or has requested a lawyer. This isn't the first time the Justice Department, under President Obama, has sought to limit defendants' rights." -- TalkLeft blog 70. "By any measure, my administration has inherited a fiscal disaster." -- Obama 71. "Ahh, see. I came down here to visit. See this is what happens. I can't end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I'm going to get grilled every time I come down here." -- Brushing off questions from the White House press corps 72. On Earth Day, Obama took two flights on Air Force One and four on Marine One to get to Iowa, burning more than 9,000 gallons of fuel. 73. "President Obama's plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs for the treatment of troops injured in service has infuriated veterans groups who say the government is morally obligated to pay for service-related medical care." -- Fox News, 3/17 74. "And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it." -- Obama during his first State Of The Union address. A German invented the automobile 75. RALPH PETERS ON: FUMBLING IN AFGHANISTAN, FAKING IT IN PAKISTAN "We're squandering blood and treasure in Afghanistan. Instead of concentrating fiercely on the vital task of destroying al Qaeda and its friends, the Obama administration's determined to erect a modern nation where no nation exists. Afghanistan isn't a country. It's a dysfunctional reservation inhabited by tribes that hate each other. There's no 'Afghan' identity. And even if our blind-to-reality efforts succeeded perfectly, the result would be meaningless. "Except as a target range where we can gun down terrorists, Afghanistan doesn't matter. Next door, Pakistan matters immensely. But we don't know what to do about it. With 170 million anti-American Muslims descending into chaos as Pashtuns, Baluchis, Punjabis, Sindhis and others claw each other over the country's shabby remains, Pakistan's corrupt president shrugs, its military cowers, its loathsome intelligence services collude with Islamist extremists, and the safety of its nuclear weapons grows doubtful. "Pakistan may be this generation's chamber of horrors. "The Obama administration's response? Drill more wells in the Afghan countryside. Dramatically reinforce our troops in Afghanistan, sticking them with an impossible mission of modernizing a pre-medieval landscape while exposing them at the end of an insecure 1,500-mile supply line through, of all places, Pakistan. "As for Pakistan itself, the Obama administration wants to send billions of dollars to a thieving government that makes Nigeria's look like a Quaker meeting and to hand Pakistan's military more arms -- weapons that might soon be used against us. "Pakistan was a bad idea when it was created in 1947. It's a worse one now. Afghanistan wasn't even an idea, just an accident of where other borders ended. We can't 'save' either one -- because neither wants to be saved on our terms. "Obama said the right things -- that Afghanistan isn't Iraq and that our goal should be the destruction of al Qaeda. But his policies just regurgitate our Iraq strategy (one he opposed) in a profoundly different context, while ambitious generals echo Vietnam-era calls for more forces. "Our troops will do whatever we ask, to the best of their magnificent abilities. But we should ask them to do things that make sense. We need creative strategic thought, but we're succumbing to sheer inertia. And the president's supporters who howled that we should abandon Iraq to concentrate on their candidate's 'good war' don't seem to be volunteering to do any fighting. Menwhle, our presient's trpped himself inside his own campaign promiseing, Vietnam!" -- Ralph Peters is the author of "Looking for Trouble: Adventures in a BeW" 77. "President Obama failed to consult Congress, as promised, before carving out exceptions to the omnibus spending bill he signed into law -- breaking his own signing-statement rules two days after issuing them -- and raised questions among lawmakers and committees who say the president's objections are unclear at best and a power grab at worst." -- Washington Times, 3/24 78. Adolfo Carrion was confirmed as Director of White House Office of Urban Affairs, but is serving under a cloud after allegations that he accepted thousands of dollars in cash from developers whose projects he approved. 79. KYLE SMITH ON: GOING AFTER RUSH LIMBAUGH "Every so often an unfocused athlete forgets about the field of play and climbs into the stands. Ty Cobb did it. Ron Artest did it. Maybe no one did it with more sick flir than the greasy, furious Hanson Brothers who, in 'Slap Shot,' climbed into the stands to give a beatdown to a fan. "In March, Barack Obama sent his own personal Hanson Brothers, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and spokesman Robert Gibbs, out to attack a non-politician -- Rush Limbaugh -- who was sitting innocently in the stands jeering the action. Limbaugh didn't even throw a cup of beer. "Senior White House staffers, who have already fallen into the classic trap of paying more attention to polls than fixing the country's problems, had become obsessed with surveys showing that Limbaugh was an unpopular figure with swing voters. Pretty soon Emanuel and Gibbs developed Limbaugh Tourette's. To paraphrase Joe Biden's witty putdown of Rudy Giuliani, for a few days every sentence they uttered contained three things: a subject, a verb and Rush Limbaugh. "El Rushbo, chuckling over his cigar as his ratings skyrocketed, could not have been more pleased if a picture had emerged of Obama wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt and burning the American flag on Harvard Square. Even that portion of the public that doesn't like Rush squirmed at the embarrassing spectacle of the president's men going all Mean Girls on an entertainer. George W. Bush's spokesmen maintained a dignified silence about Michael Moore. Picture them fanning out over the Sunday talk shows to denounce, and drive up the box-office receipts of, 'Fahrenheit 9/11.' Wouldn't you have loved that, Michael?" -- Kyle Smith is a Post columnist 80. Forced banks that didn't want TARP money to take it, then added on stipulations about pay and government control after the fact. Secretly forced Bank of America to buy Merrill Lynch, then allowed the bank to be criticized for overpaying. 81. "More than 90% of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States," Obama said in Mexico, yet factcheck.org says, "The figure represents only the percentage of crime guns that have been submitted by Mexican officials and traced by U.S. officials. We can find no hard data on the total number of guns actually 'recovered in Mexico,' but US and Mexican officials both say that Mexico recovers more guns that it submits for tracing. Therefore, the percentage of guns 'recovered' and traced to US sources necessarily is less than 90%." 82. Obama: " , said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off." Jim Owens: "I think realistically no. The truth is we're going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again." 83. "In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive." -- Obama in Strasbourg, France 84. Joe Biden: "If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, if we stand up there and we really make the tough decisions, there's still a 30% chance we're going to get it wrong." 85. Joe Biden: "You all worked for change. You wanted to see change. Well, that wasn't a hard thing to try to communicate to the American people. Obviously, obviously, we needed a change almost no matter who was running." 86. Joe Biden: "You know, I'm embarrassed. Do you know the Web site number? I should have it in front of me and I don't. I'm actually embarrassed." 87. "There are more than 6.5 million trucks in the United States. The program Congress terminated allowed 97 Mexican trucks to roam among them. Ninety-seven! Shutting them out not only undermines NAFTA. It caused Mexico to retaliate with tariffs on 90 goods affecting $2.4 billion in U.S. trade coming out of 40 states." -- Charles Krauthammer, 3/20 88. DAVID M. DRUCKER ON: BOWING TO CONGRESS "Although the president possesses enormous political capital -- both because of high approval ratings and because his administration is still in its infancy -- he has generally declined to exercise it with Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, including when it comes to crafting legislation key to moving his agenda forward. "Rather he has allowed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) to craft legislation as they see fit -- even though the very bills in question were proposed by the president and involve key planks in his agenda. Among them were Obama's signature $787 billion economic stimulus bill, his first major piece of legislation that was signed into law in February; and now health care reform, currently being negotiated on Capitol Hill with minimal input from the White House. "This soft-pedal style of leadership runs the risk of forcing Obama to embrace legislation constructed for narrow partisan interests rather than in a manner capable of garnering broad bipartisan support. Over time, the public might come to see Obama's deference to Pelosi and Reid as a weakness of leadership not befitting a president in tough times." -- David M. Drucker is a staff writer for Roll Call 89. "It has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census, there are irresolvable conflicts for me." -- Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who became the second failed Commerce Secretary nominee 90. In the third sentence of his first speech as president, Obama said, "44 Americans have now taken the presidential oath." The correct number is 43, as Grover Cleveland served twice. 91. The $49 million inauguration -- triple what taxpayers spent at Bush's first inauguration. 92. Giving the Queen of England an iPod full of his own speeches. 93. Three prime-time briefings in his first 100 days, eating into television revenues and this Wednesday pre-empting "American Idol." 94. "The United States government has no interest in running GM. Your warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it's ever been, because starting today, the United States government will stand behind your warranty." -- Obama 95. GM is given $15.4 billion in loans from the government. 96. The Obama Administration is trying to scuttle a lawsuit filed in federal court against Iran by former US embassy hostages. The lawsuit alleges that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of the hostage-takers who interrogated the captives. 97. GLENN BECK ON: BAD ECONOMIC PREDICTIONS "Ten days before his inauguration, the President's chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Rohmer, released a report describing what to expect economically during the first 100 days and beyond. It presented two starkly different scenarios: one good (if the stimulus were to be passed), and one terrifyingly bad (if we did nothing). Amazingly, the report estimated that if the stimulus package were to pass, the unemployment rate would not go above 8% at any time until at least 2014. "It's already at 8.5%. "In fact, while there is an acknowledged level of uncertainty, the projections estimated that the unemployment rate would be lower today if we had done nothing at all. This suggests one of two things: either the administration misjudged the seriousness of our economic problems, or the stimulus plan is actually making things worse. I suspect it's a little of both. "Remember, when the President's budget was released, he was roundly criticized for his never ending deficits, even under his own optimistic scenarios for growth. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected deficits that were even uglier. But, if the President and his economic planners were this far off, this soon, how much worse does the future look now? "The election was supposed to bring 'change,' but I was hoping for more than the letter after the President's name, the positivity of the media coverage, and the hypoallergenic qualities of the White House puppy. President Obama didn't get us into this situation, but so far he's doubling down on the same spending philosophy that did. Common sense tells us that new debt is not the cure for old debt. No matter what the slogans say, that won't change in 100 days or 100 years." -- Glenn Beck is the host of the "Glenn Beck" show, weekdays at 5 p.m. on Fox News. 98. "Education Secretary Arne Duncan has decided not to admit any new students to the D.C. voucher program, which allows low-income children to attend private schools ... For all the talk about putting children first, it's clear that the special interests that have long opposed vouchers are getting their way." -- Washington Post, 4/11 99. Obama enrolled his daughters in a DC private school. 100. "Don't think we're not keeping score, brother." -- Obama to Rep. Peter DeFazio, after the Democratic congressman voted against the stimulus bill. Due to an editing error, a portion of this piece originally was improperly credited to Sarah Palin, when it should have been attributed to Meghan Clyne. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c73_1240966794 singlelife 100 DAYS, 100 MISTAKES 100 days, mistakes, obama Sat, 25 Apr 2009 21:26:40 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d39_1240708910 ShadowankerdogKGB 1. "Obama criticized pork barrel spending in the form of 'earmarks,' urging changes in the way that Congress adopts the spending proposals. Then he signed a spending bill that contains nearly 9,000 of them, some that members of his own staff shoved in last year when they were still members of Congress. 'Let there be no doubt, this piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business, and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability,' Obama said." -- McClatchy, 3/11 2. "There is no doubt that we've been living beyond our means and we're going to have to make some adjustments." -- Obama during the campaign. 3. This year's budget deficit: $1.5 trillion. 4. Asks his Cabinet to cut costs in their departments by $100 million -- a whopping .0027%! 5. "The White House says the president is unaware of the tea parties." -- ABC News, 4/15 6. "Mr. Obama is an accomplished orator but is becoming known in America as the 'teleprompt president' over his reliance on the machine when he gives a speech." -- Sky News, 3/18 7. In early February, the 2010 census was moved out of the Department of Commerce and into the White House, politicizing how federal aid is distributed and electoral districts are drawn. 8. Obama taps Nancy Killefer for a new administration job, First Chief Performance Officer -- to police government spending. But it surfaces that Killefer had performance issues of her own -- a tax lien was slapped on her DC home in 2005 for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help. She withdrew. 9. Turkey tried to block the appointment of Anders Fogh Rasmussen as new NATO secretary general because he didn't properly punish the Danish cartoonist who caricatured Mohammed. France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel were outraged; Obama said he supported Turkey's induction into the European Union. 10. . . . and he never mentioned the Armenian genocide. 11. The picture of Obama and Hugo Chavez shaking hands. 12. Hugo Chavez gave him the anti-American screed "The Open Veins of Latin America." Obama didn't remark upon it. At least it wasn't DVDs. 13. Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega went on a 50-minute anti-American rant, calling Obama "president of an empire." Obama didn't leave the room. "I thought it was 50 minutes long. That's what I thought," he said. 14. Executives at AIG get $165 million in bonuses, despite receiving an $173 billion taxpayer bailout. 15. "For months, the Obama administration and members of Congress have known that insurance giant AIG was getting ready to pay huge bonuses while living off government bailouts. It wasn't until the money was flowing and news was trickling out to the public that official Washington rose up in anger and vowed to yank the money back." -- Associated Press, 3/18 16. "After pushing Congress for weeks to hurry up and pass the massive $787 billion stimulus bill, President Obama promptly took off for a three-day holiday getaway." -- New York Post, 2/15 17. SARAH PALIN ON: "I WON" AND THE DEATH OF BIPARTISANSHIP "Obama soared to victory on the hopeful promise of a new era of bipartisanship. During his inaugural address he even promised an 'end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.' "Too bad it took all of three days for the promise to ring hollow. "Start with Obama's big meeting with top congressional leaders on his signature legislation -- the stimulus -- on the Friday after his inauguration. Listening to Republican concerns about overspending was a nice gesture -- until he shut down any hopes of real dialogue by crassly telling Republican leaders: 'I won.' Even the White House's leaking of the comment was a slap at the Republican leadership, who'd expected Obama to adhere to the custom of keeping private meetings with congressional leadership, well, private. "It's only gone downhill from there. The stimulus included zero Republican recommendations, and failed to get a single House Republican vote. "It's not just the tactic of using Republicans for bipartisan photo-ops, and then cutting them loose before partisan decisions, that irks Obama's opponents. The new president wasted no time rushing forward with policies and legislation guaranteed to drive Republicans nuts. The first bill he signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act -- a partisan hot-button that drew all of eight Republican supporters in the entire Congress. Then there was the swift reversal of Bush policies on abortion and embryonic-stem-cell research -- issues dear to the Republican base. "And when Obama and the Democrats in Congress took up SCHIP -- the children's health-insurance bill that Republicans say vastly expands government's role in health care -- they had an easy chance for real bipartisanship. After all, the bill had been hashed out in the previous Congress, and a bipartisan accord was reached before President Bush responded with a veto. Did the Obama team push for the compromise version in the 111th Congress? Nope. They went back to the drawing board, ramming through the Democrats' dream version. "Of course, the lack of bipartisanship isn't limited to Capitol Hill. Obama has taken gratuitous swipes at the Republicans who recently decamped Washington, blaming President Bush for everything from the economy and the war to the lack of sufficient puppies and rainbows. And who could forget the Rush Limbaugh flap -- in which Obama's top advisers, including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, orchestrated a public relations campaign meant to undermine the Republican National Committee chairman, Michael Steele, by framing talk-radio personality Limbaugh as the real head of the Republican Party. "For now, Obama's back-pedal on the bipartisanship promise just makes him look insincere. But the real consequences of the mistake will be felt soon enough. As Presidents Bush and Clinton could tell him, congressional majorities do change -- and at some point, Obama will need Republicans on his side. He'd be smart to spend his second 100 days making up for the serious snubs of his first." -- Sarah Palin is the governor of Alaska 18. "The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today." -- Department of Homeland Security intelligence report 19. Nixes a "buy American" provision in the stimulus bill. 20. "Yes, Canada is not Mexico, it doesn't have a drug war going on. Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it's been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there." -- Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The 9/11 hijackers did not come across the Canada border 21. "The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for overhauling the health care system. The proposal is politically problematic for President Obama, however, since it is similar to one he denounced in the presidential campaign as 'the largest middle-class tax increase in history.' " -- New York Times, 3/14 22. JOE SCARBOROUGH ON: PROMOTING FEAR "During his historic inaugural speech, Barack Obama promised to usher in a transformational age where hope would replace fear, unity would overtake partisanship, and change would sweep aside the status quo. But early in President Obama's first 100 days it is obvious that the only thing that is changing is the Candidate of Change, himself. "The same politician who proclaimed during his inauguration that 'on this day we have chosen hope over fear' soon warned Americans that the US economy would be forever destroyed if the stimulus bill was voted down. "Why was it that same man who promised to put Americans' interests ahead of his own political ambitions chose instead to use the suffering of citizens to advance his agenda? "Maybe he was following the guidance of Rahm Emanuel, who famously said, 'You never want to waste a good crisis.' "They didn't. "The White House's warnings were so over-the-top that Bill Clinton felt compelled to warn the new president against making such grim pronouncements. Americans would quickly warn that the White House would not channel FDR's eternal optimism but rather embrace the gloomy worldview of Edgar Allen Poe. "The Candidate of Hope also quickly adopted the Nixonian worldview that Americans voted their fears rather than their hopes. Over Mr. Obama's first 100 days, that cynical calculation paid off politically for a White House that seemed most interested in appeasing the most liberal members of his Democratic Party. "I expected more from Barack Obama. For the sake of my country, I hope I get it from the new president over the next 100 days." -- Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" and author of "The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America's Promise" (Crown Forum), due out June 9. 23. Sanjay Gupta was in discussions to become Surgeon General, but the TV personality withdrew after he was criticized for his flimsy political record. 24. Rasmussen finds 58% of Americans believe the Obama administration's release of CIA memos endangers the national security of the United States. 25. Only 28% think the Obama administration should do any further investigating of how the Bush administration treated terrorism suspects. 26. "Obama thanked CIA employees for their work and said they're invaluable to national security. He explained his decision to release the memos, then told everyone not to feel bad because he was now acknowledging potential mistakes. Theirs, not his. 'That's how we learn,' Obama said, as though soothing a room full of fourth-graders." -- The Oklahoman, 4/23 27. By releasing the torture memos, Obama opened American citizens up to international tribunals. A UN lawyer said the US is obliged to prosecute lawyers who drafted the memos or else violate the Geneva Conventions. 28. In their first meeting, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave Obama a carved ornamental penholder from the timbers of the anti-slavery ship HMS Gannet. Obama gave him 25 DVDs that don't work in Europe. 29. TIM CARNEY ON: PICKING BILL RICHARDSON AS SECRETARY OF COMMERCE "Richardson's value in Obama's Cabinet had everything to do with appearances. First, he was the Hispanic pick. Second, because Richardson had run against Obama for President, tapping him for the Cabinet helped the media write the Obama-Lincoln comparisons by burnishing the 'Team of Rivals' image. "But Richardson withdrew before Obama was even inaugurated when news came out about a criminal investigation involving David Rubin, president of a firm named Chambers, Dunhill, Rubin & Co. (although there was no Chambers or Dunhill), who had donated at least $110,000 to Richardson's campaign committees and had also profited from $1.5 million in contracts from the state government. "This was an early warning sign about Obama's vetting process (various tax problems and the Daschle problem would reveal this as a theme), but picking Richardson to run Commerce also highlighted that Obama and Richardson's promise of 'public-private partnerships' -- such as Detroit bailouts, Wall Street bailouts, and green energy--was an open door for corruption and was at odds with Obama's promise to diminish the influence of lobbyists. "The Richardson mistake was one of Obama's first, and it was emblematic. Richardson embodied Obama's attention to self-image and the problems inherent in his vision of an intimate business-government connection." -- Tim Carney is a Washington Examiner columnist 30. Timothy Geithner nomination as Secretary of Treasury was almost torpedoed when it was discovered he had failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes. He also employed an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper. He was confirmed anyway. 31. . . . Not so lucky, Annette Nazareth, who was nominated for Deputy Treasury Secretary. She withdrew her name for undisclosed "personal reasons" after a monthlong probe into her taxes . . . 32. . . . or Caroline Atkinson, who withdrew as nominee for Undersecretary of International Affairs in Treasury Department, with a source blaming the long vetting process. Geithner still has a skeleton crew at Treasury, with no one qualified -- or willing -- to take jobs there. 33. "Barack Obama has been embroiled in a cronyism row after reports that he intends to make Louis Susman, one of his biggest fundraisers, the new US ambassador in London. The selection of Mr. Susman, a lawyer and banker from the president's hometown of Chicago, rather than an experienced diplomat, raises new questions about Mr Obama's commitment to the special relationship with Britain." -- Telegraph, 2/22 34. Obama's doom-and-gloom comments and budget bill push the Dow below 7,000, from which it's only recently recovered. 35. "You're sitting here. And you're -- you are laughing. You are laughing about some of these problems. Are people going to look at this and say, 'I mean, he's sitting there just making jokes about money--' How do you deal with -- I mean: Explain. Are you punch-drunk?" -- Steve Kroft, "60 Minutes," 3/22 36. "We have begun to modernize 75% of all federal building space, which has the potential to reduce long-term energy costs by billions of dollars on behalf of taxpayers. We are providing grants to states to help weatherize hundreds of thousands of homes, which will save the families that benefit about $350 each year. That's like a $350 tax cut." -- Obama, describing something that doesn't cut taxes. 37. "The Obama administration has directed defense officials to sign a pledge stating they will not share 2010 budget data with individuals outside the federal government." -- Defense News, 2/19 38. Backtracking on a campaign promise he made to black farmers, Obama significantly lowered the amount of money they could claim in a discrimination settlement against the Agricultural Department. "I can't figure out for the life of me why the president wouldn't want to implement a bill that he fought for as a US senator," said John Boyd, head of the National Black Farmers Association. 39. "I've been practicing bowling. I bowled a 129. It was like the Special Olympics or something." -- Obama on "The Tonight Show" 40. Obama lifts travel and remittance restrictions on Cuba. 41. Obama considers dropping the embargo on Cuba. 42. After warming signs from Raul Castro, Fidel Castro says Obama "misinterpreted" his brother's words, and that Cuba would not be willing to negotiate about human rights. 43. Obama is considering dropping a key demand to Iran, allowing it to keep nuclear facilities open during negotiations. 44. In a letter to Dmitri Medvedev, Obama offered to drop plans for a missile shield in Europe in exchange for Russia's help in resolving the nuclear weapons issue in Iran. 45. Medvedev said he would not "haggle" on Iran and the missile shield. 46. Obama asked Congress for an extra $83.4 billion to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a special funding measure of the kind he opposed while in the senate. As a candidate, Obama promised to cut the cost of military operations. 47. After trying to woo Europe as the "anti-Bush," Obama made an impassioned plea for more troops in Afghanistan. "Europe should not simply expect the United States to shoulder that burden alone," he said. "This is a joint problem it requires a joint effort." Only the UK offered substantial help, most others refused. 48. "While the online question portion of the White House town hall was open to any member of the public with an Internet connection, the five fully identified questioners called on randomly by the president in the East Room were anything but a diverse lot. They included: a member of the pro-Obama Service Employees International Union, a member of the Democratic National Committee who campaigned for Obama among Hispanics during the primary; a former Democratic candidate for Virginia state delegate who endorsed Obama last fall in an op-ed in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star; and a Virginia businessman who was a donor to Obama's campaign in 2008." -- Washington Post, 3/27 49. Obama bows to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at a G-20 meeting in London. 50. "It wasn't a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he's taller than King Abdullah." -- An Obama aide 51. DANA PERINO ON: REMAINING IN CAMPAIGN MODE "Has it really only been 100 days? In many ways it feels like a lot longer. "That's partly because the new administration remains in campaign mode most of the time. Now that's not in itself a bad thing if you can do that and accomplish your agenda. But what's happened is that a popular new president has laid out a very bold agenda in the midst of an economic crisis, and I don't think Congress is going to get a lot of work done on those big ticket items this year. They'll eke out a couple of small wins on issues like healthcare and maybe energy, but the Democrats will hail them as big victories. The Republicans have been working like a cohesive and loyal opposition party, and they need to continue to outline positive new ideas like the recent one to help grow American's savings. "The early stumbles on the administration's high profile nominations -- Daschle and Richardson for just to examples -- acted like weights around their ankles. In addition, the partisan shots from the White House were unbecoming and I don't think we'll see more of that. Our allies and our enemies -- heck, even we ourselves -- are trying to understand the new foreign policy direction, which in some ways seems to be change just for the sake of change. The next moves by the leaders of other countries -- like Iran, North Korea and Venezuela -- probably will prove that really not much will change just because America has a new president. "In many ways, it's the next 100 days that will tell us more about our new president and what he'll be able to accomplish than we can forecast based on the first 100 days." -- Dana Perino was White House press secretary in the Bush Administration 52. "We can't afford to make perfect the enemy of the absolutely necessary." -- Obama, describing the stimulus bill 53. Three candidates for ambassador to the Vatican -- including Caroline Kennedy -- were turned down by the Holy See because they supported abortion, according to reports. 54. After saying he wouldn't have lobbyists in his administration, Obama made 17 exceptions in the first two weeks in office. 55. . . . including Tom Daschle, who worked as a top lobbyist yet was going to be appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services -- until his failure to pay income taxes derailed his nomination. 56. For an April 14 speech at Georgetown, the administration asked the university to cover up all signs and symbols -- including the letters "IHS" in gold, a symbol for Jesus. 57. Samantha Power, who resigned from the Obama campaign after calling Hillary Rodham Clinton a "monster," was hired to a position on the National Security Council. 58. "Chicago has yet to recoup the $1.74 million cost of President Obama's victory celebration in Grant Park -- despite a burgeoning $50.5 million budget shortfall that threatens more layoffs and union concessions." -- Chicago Sun-Times, 2/20 59. Firing Rick Wagoner as president of GM. 60. Threatening to fire Vikram Pandit as CEO of Citigroup. 61. Threatening to fire anyone the administration doesn't like from any company. 62. Not adopting a dog from a shelter. 63. "The GAO study asserts that officials from most of the states surveyed 'expressed concerns regarding the lack of Recovery Act funding provided for accountability and oversight. Due to fiscal constraints, many states reported significant declines in the number of oversight staff -- limiting their ability to ensure proper implementation and management of Recovery Act funds.' " -- ABC News, 4/23 64. "The National Newspaper Publishers Association named Obama 'Newsmaker of the Year.' The president is to receive the award from the federation of black community newspapers in a White House ceremony this afternoon. The Obama White House has closed the press award ceremony to the press." -- Los Angeles Times, 3/20 65. "Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards." -- Attorney General Eric Holder 66. "I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any seances." -- Obama, on consulting with only "living" presidents 67. Obama quietly announced that he would not press for new labor and environmental regulations in the North American Free Trade Agreement, going back on a campaign promise. 68. NICOLE GELINAS ON: MISSPENT STIMULUS "One of Obama's most poignant missed opportunities was in not using the historic $787 million stimulus package to reorder state and local government's spending priorities. As states and cities continue to spend ceaselessly and without results on education and healthcare, they're crowding out investments in the physical infrastructure that the private sector needs to rebuild the economy. "In the stimulus, of the more than $200 billion that went directly to states and cities, nearly 70% went to education and healthcare spending. Only 24% went to infrastructure spending. "But the states and cities in the most trouble already spend way too much on education and healthcare, pushing taxes up and sending private industry away. They don't spend nearly enough on infrastructure, which attracts the private sector and builds the real economy. "As David Walker, former comptroller general of the US, said at the Regional Plan Association's annual meeting a week ago, nationwide, we are the 'highest in the world' on education. We are 'the highest in the world' on healthcare. 'Nobody comes even close.' On infrastructure, by contrast, we are 'below average' in both critical new investments and in much-needed maintenance spending. "And, as Democratic governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell said at the same conference, when President Dwight Eisenhower left office, infrastructure spending was about 12.5% of non-military domestic spending. Today, it's about 2.5%. "This shortfall is obvious to anyone who's ridden on an "express train" to the outer boroughs or driven on the Cross Bronx Expressway recently. But in New York, as elsewhere, the stimulus money has just allowed the state to ramp up spending on its wasteful, inhumane Medicaid program and its nosebleed public-school spending. "Meanwhile, the subways are about to crumble into oblivion -- taking the economy with them. The same is true of decaying infrastructure in California and in aging states across the nation. "The stimulus was a once-in-a-generation chance to change this. Instead, it made the situation worse." -- Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to City Journal 69. "The Justice Department is asking the Supreme Court to overrule Michigan v. Jackson, the 1986 Supreme Court decision that held that if police may not interrogate a defendant after the right to counsel has attached, if the defendant has a lawyer or has requested a lawyer. This isn't the first time the Justice Department, under President Obama, has sought to limit defendants' rights." -- TalkLeft blog 70. "By any measure, my administration has inherited a fiscal disaster." -- Obama 71. "Ahh, see. I came down here to visit. See this is what happens. I can't end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I'm going to get grilled every time I come down here." -- Brushing off questions from the White House press corps 72. On Earth Day, Obama took two flights on Air Force One and four on Marine One to get to Iowa, burning more than 9,000 gallons of fuel. 73. "President Obama's plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs for the treatment of troops injured in service has infuriated veterans groups who say the government is morally obligated to pay for service-related medical care." -- Fox News, 3/17 74. "And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it." -- Obama during his first State Of The Union address. A German invented the automobile 75. RALPH PETERS ON: FUMBLING IN AFGHANISTAN, FAKING IT IN PAKISTAN "We're squandering blood and treasure in Afghanistan. Instead of concentrating fiercely on the vital task of destroying al Qaeda and its friends, the Obama administration's determined to erect a modern nation where no nation exists. Afghanistan isn't a country. It's a dysfunctional reservation inhabited by tribes that hate each other. There's no 'Afghan' identity. And even if our blind-to-reality efforts succeeded perfectly, the result would be meaningless. "Except as a target range where we can gun down terrorists, Afghanistan doesn't matter. Next door, Pakistan matters immensely. But we don't know what to do about it. With 170 million anti-American Muslims descending into chaos as Pashtuns, Baluchis, Punjabis, Sindhis and others claw each other over the country's shabby remains, Pakistan's corrupt president shrugs, its military cowers, its loathsome intelligence services collude with Islamist extremists, and the safety of its nuclear weapons grows doubtful. "Pakistan may be this generation's chamber of horrors. "The Obama administration's response? Drill more wells in the Afghan countryside. Dramatically reinforce our troops in Afghanistan, sticking them with an impossible mission of modernizing a pre-medieval landscape while exposing them at the end of an insecure 1,500-mile supply line through, of all places, Pakistan. "As for Pakistan itself, the Obama administration wants to send billions of dollars to a thieving government that makes Nigeria's look like a Quaker meeting and to hand Pakistan's military more arms -- weapons that might soon be used against us. "Pakistan was a bad idea when it was created in 1947. It's a worse one now. Afghanistan wasn't even an idea, just an accident of where other borders ended. We can't 'save' either one -- because neither wants to be saved on our terms. "Obama said the right things -- that Afghanistan isn't Iraq and that our goal should be the destruction of al Qaeda. But his policies just regurgitate our Iraq strategy (one he opposed) in a profoundly different context, while ambitious generals echo Vietnam-era calls for more forces. "Our troops will do whatever we ask, to the best of their magnificent abilities. But we should ask them to do things that make sense. We need creative strategic thought, but we're succumbing to sheer inertia. And the president's supporters who howled that we should abandon Iraq to concentrate on their candidate's 'good war' don't seem to be volunteering to do any fighting. Meanwhile, our president's trapped himself inside his own campaign promiseing, Vietnam!" -- Ralph Peters is the author of "Looking for Trouble: Adventures in a Boken World" 77. "President Obama failed to consult Congress, as promised, before carving out exceptions to the omnibus spending bill he signed into law -- breaking his own signing-statement rules two days after issuing them -- and raised questions among lawmakers and committees who say the president's objections are unclear at best and a power grab at worst." -- Washington Times, 3/24 78. Adolfo Carrion was confirmed as Director of White House Office of Urban Affairs, but is serving under a cloud after allegations that he accepted thousands of dollars in cash from developers whose projects he approved. 79. KYLE SMITH ON: GOING AFTER RUSH LIMBAUGH "Every so often an unfocused athlete forgets about the field of play and climbs into the stands. Ty Cobb did it. Ron Artest did it. Maybe no one did it with more sick flir than the greasy, furious Hanson Brothers who, in 'Slap Shot,' climbed into the stands to give a beatdown to a fan. "In March, Barack Obama sent his own personal Hanson Brothers, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and spokesman Robert Gibbs, out to attack a non-politician -- Rush Limbaugh -- who was sitting innocently in the stands jeering the action. Limbaugh didn't even throw a cup of beer. "Senior White House staffers, who have already fallen into the classic trap of paying more attention to polls than fixing the country's problems, had become obsessed with surveys showing that Limbaugh was an unpopular figure with swing voters. Pretty soon Emanuel and Gibbs developed Limbaugh Tourette's. To paraphrase Joe Biden's witty putdown of Rudy Giuliani, for a few days every sentence they uttered contained three things: a subject, a verb and Rush Limbaugh. "El Rushbo, chuckling over his cigar as his ratings skyrocketed, could not have been more pleased if a picture had emerged of Obama wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt and burning the American flag on Harvard Square. Even that portion of the public that doesn't like Rush squirmed at the embarrassing spectacle of the president's men going all Mean Girls on an entertainer. George W. Bush's spokesmen maintained a dignified silence about Michael Moore. Picture them fanning out over the Sunday talk shows to denounce, and drive up the box-office receipts of, 'Fahrenheit 9/11.' Wouldn't you have loved that, Michael?" -- Kyle Smith is a Post columnist 80. Forced banks that didn't want TARP money to take it, then added on stipulations about pay and government control after the fact. Secretly forced Bank of America to buy Merrill Lynch, then allowed the bank to be criticized for overpaying. 81. "More than 90% of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States," Obama said in Mexico, yet factcheck.org says, "The figure represents only the percentage of crime guns that have been submitted by Mexican officials and traced by U.S. officials. We can find no hard data on the total number of guns actually 'recovered in Mexico,' but US and Mexican officials both say that Mexico recovers more guns that it submits for tracing. Therefore, the percentage of guns 'recovered' and traced to US sources necessarily is less than 90%." 82. Obama: " , said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off." Jim Owens: "I think realistically no. The truth is we're going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again." 83. "In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive." -- Obama in Strasbourg, France 84. Joe Biden: "If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, if we stand up there and we really make the tough decisions, there's still a 30% chance we're going to get it wrong." 85. Joe Biden: "You all worked for change. You wanted to see change. Well, that wasn't a hard thing to try to communicate to the American people. Obviously, obviously, we needed a change almost no matter who was running." 86. Joe Biden: "You know, I'm embarrassed. Do you know the Web site number? I should have it in front of me and I don't. I'm actually embarrassed." 87. "There are more than 6.5 million trucks in the United States. The program Congress terminated allowed 97 Mexican trucks to roam among them. Ninety-seven! Shutting them out not only undermines NAFTA. It caused Mexico to retaliate with tariffs on 90 goods affecting $2.4 billion in U.S. trade coming out of 40 states." -- Charles Krauthammer, 3/20 88. DAVID M. DRUCKER ON: BOWING TO CONGRESS "Although the president possesses enormous political capital -- both because of high approval ratings and because his administration is still in its infancy -- he has generally declined to exercise it with Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, including when it comes to crafting legislation key to moving his agenda forward. "Rather he has allowed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) to craft legislation as they see fit -- even though the very bills in question were proposed by the president and involve key planks in his agenda. Among them were Obama's signature $787 billion economic stimulus bill, his first major piece of legislation that was signed into law in February; and now health care reform, currently being negotiated on Capitol Hill with minimal input from the White House. "This soft-pedal style of leadership runs the risk of forcing Obama to embrace legislation constructed for narrow partisan interests rather than in a manner capable of garnering broad bipartisan support. Over time, the public might come to see Obama's deference to Pelosi and Reid as a weakness of leadership not befitting a president in tough times." -- David M. Drucker is a staff writer for Roll Call 89. "It has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census, there are irresolvable conflicts for me." -- Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who became the second failed Commerce Secretary nominee 90. In the third sentence of his first speech as president, Obama said, "44 Americans have now taken the presidential oath." The correct number is 43, as Grover Cleveland served twice. 91. The $49 million inauguration -- triple what taxpayers spent at Bush's first inauguration. 92. Giving the Queen of England an iPod full of his own speeches. 93. Three prime-time briefings in his first 100 days, eating into television revenues and this Wednesday pre-empting "American Idol." 94. "The United States government has no interest in running GM. Your warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it's ever been, because starting today, the United States government will stand behind your warranty." -- Obama 95. GM is given $15.4 billion in loans from the government. 96. The Obama Administration is trying to scuttle a lawsuit filed in federal court against Iran by former US embassy hostages. The lawsuit alleges that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of the hostage-takers who interrogated the captives. 97. GLENN BECK ON: BAD ECONOMIC PREDICTIONS "Ten days before his inauguration, the President's chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Rohmer, released a report describing what to expect economically during the first 100 days and beyond. It presented two starkly different scenarios: one good (if the stimulus were to be passed), and one terrifyingly bad (if we did nothing). Amazingly, the report estimated that if the stimulus package were to pass, the unemployment rate would not go above 8% at any time until at least 2014. "It's already at 8.5%. "In fact, while there is an acknowledged level of uncertainty, the projections estimated that the unemployment rate would be lower today if we had done nothing at all. This suggests one of two things: either the administration misjudged the seriousness of our economic problems, or the stimulus plan is actually making things worse. I suspect it's a little of both. "Remember, when the President's budget was released, he was roundly criticized for his never ending deficits, even under his own optimistic scenarios for growth. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected deficits that were even uglier. But, if the President and his economic planners were this far off, this soon, how much worse does the future look now? "The election was supposed to bring 'change,' but I was hoping for more than the letter after the President's name, the positivity of the media coverage, and the hypoallergenic qualities of the White House puppy. President Obama didn't get us into this situation, but so far he's doubling down on the same spending philosophy that did. Common sense tells us that new debt is not the cure for old debt. No matter what the slogans say, that won't change in 100 days or 100 years." -- Glenn Beck is the host of the "Glenn Beck" show, weekdays at 5 p.m. on Fox News. 98. "Education Secretary Arne Duncan has decided not to admit any new students to the D.C. voucher program, which allows low-income children to attend private schools ... For all the talk about putting children first, it's clear that the special interests that have long opposed vouchers are getting their way." -- Washington Post, 4/11 99. Obama enrolled his daughters in a DC private school. 100. "Don't think we're not keeping score, brother." -- Obama to Rep. Peter DeFazio, after the Democratic congressman voted against the stimulus bill. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d39_1240708910 ShadowankerdogKGB 100 DAYS, 100 MISTAKES bs, lies, fail, partisan, 2012 Sat, 05 Jan 2013 13:29:53 -0500 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=70d_1357410021 LaGrandeBouffe Death Squads in Iraq and Syria. The Historical Roots of US-NATO's Covert War on Syria The recruitment of death squads is part of a well established US military-intelligence agenda. There is a long and gruesome US history of covert funding and support of terror brigades and targeted assassinations going back to the Vietnam war. As government forces continue to confront the self-proclaimed "Free Syrian Army" (FSA), the historical roots of the West's covert war on Syria -which has resulted in countless atrocities- must be fully revealed. From the outset in March 2011, the US and its allies have supported the formation of death squads and the incursion of terrorist brigades in a carefully planned undertaking. The recruitment and training of terror brigades in both Iraq and Syria was modeled on the "Salvador Option", a "terrorist model" of mass killings by US sponsored death squads in Central America. It was first applied in El Salvador, in the heyday of resistance against the military dictatorship, resulting in an estimated 75,000 deaths. The formation of death squads in Syria builds upon the history and experience of US sponsored terror brigades in Iraq, under the Pentagon's "counterinsurgency" program. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF DEATH SQUADS IN IRAQ US sponsored death squads were recruited in Iraq starting in 2004-2005 in an initiative launched under the helm of the US Ambassador John Negroponte, who was dispatched to Baghdad by the US State Department in June 2004. Negroponte was the "man for the job". As US Ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985. Negroponte played a key role in supporting and supervising the Nicaraguan Contras based in Honduras as well as overseeing the activities of the Honduran military death squads. "Under the rule of General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, Honduras's military government was both a close ally of the Reagan administration and was "disappearing" dozens of political opponents in classic death squad fashion." In January 2005, the Pentagon, confirmed that it was considering: "forming hit squads of Kurdish and Shia fighters to target leaders of the Iraqi insurgency in a strategic shift borrowed from the American struggle against left-wing guerrillas in Central America 20 years ago". Under the so-called "El Salvador option", Iraqi and American forces would be sent to kill or kidnap insurgency leaders, even in Syria, where some are thought to shelter. ... Hit squads would be controversial and would probably be kept secret. The experience of the so-called "death squads" in Central America remains raw for many even now and helped to sully the image of the United States in the region. Then, the Reagan Administration funded and trained teams of nationalist forces to neutralise Salvadorean rebel leaders and sympathisers. ... John Negroponte, the US Ambassador in Baghdad, had a front-row seat at the time as Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-85. Death squads were a brutal feature of Latin American politics of the time. ... In the early 1980s President Reagan's Administration funded and helped to train Nicaraguan contras based in Honduras with the aim of ousting Nicaragua's Sandinista regime. The Contras were equipped using money from illegal American arms sales to Iran, a scandal that could have toppled Mr Reagan. The thrust of the Pentagon proposal in Iraq, ... is to follow that model ... It is unclear whether the main aim of the missions would be to assassinate the rebels or kidnap them and take them away for interrogation. Any mission in Syria would probably be undertaken by US Special Forces. Nor is it clear who would take responsibility for such a programme - the Pentagon or the Central Intelligence Agency. Such covert operations have traditionally been run by the CIA at arm's length from the administration in power, giving US officials the ability to deny knowledge of it. (El Salvador-style 'death squads' to be deployed by US against Iraq militants - Times Online, January 10, 2005, emphasis added) While the stated objective of the "Iraq Salvador Option" was to "take out the insurgency", in practice the US sponsored terror brigades were involved in routine killings of civilians with a view to fomenting sectarian violence. In turn, the CIA and MI6 were overseeing "Al Qaeda in Iraq" units involved in targeted assassinations directed against the Shiite population. Of significance, the death squads were integrated and advised by undercover US Special Forces. Robert Stephen Ford -subsequently appointed US Ambassador to Syria- was part of Negroponte's team in Baghdad in 2004-2005. In January 2004, he was dispatched as U.S. representative to the Shiite city of Najaf which was the stronghold of the Mahdi army, with which he made preliminary contacts. In January 2005, Robert S. Ford's was appointed Minister Counselor for Political Affairs at the US Embassy under the helm of Ambassador John Negroponte. He was not only part of the inner team, he was Negroponte's partner in setting up the Salvador Option. Some of the groundwork had been established in Najaf prior to Ford's transfer to Baghdad. John Negroponte and Robert Stephen Ford were put in charge of recruiting the Iraqi death squads. While Negroponte coordinated the operation from his office at the US Embassy, Robert S. Ford, who was fluent in both Arabic and Turkish, was entrusted with the task of establishing strategic contacts with Shiite and Kurdish militia groups outside the "Green Zone". Two other embassy officials, namely Henry Ensher (Ford's Deputy) and a younger official in the political section, Jeffrey Beals, played an important role in the team "talking to a range of Iraqis, including extremists". (See The New Yorker, March 26, 2007). Another key individual in Negroponte's team was James Franklin Jeffrey, America's ambassador to Albania (2002-2004). In 2010, Jeffrey was appointed US Ambassador to Iraq (2010-2012). Negroponte also brought into the team one of his former collaborators Colonel James Steele (ret) from his Honduras heyday: Under the "Salvador Option," "Negroponte had assistance from his colleague from his days in Central America during the 1980's, Ret. Col James Steele. Steele, whose title in Baghdad was Counselor for Iraqi Security Forces supervised the selection and training of members of the Badr Organization and Mehdi Army, the two largest Shi'ite militias in Iraq, in order to target the leadership and support networks of a primarily Sunni resistance. Planned or not, these death squads promptly spiralled out of control to become the leading cause of death in Iraq. Intentional or not, the scores of tortured, mutilated bodies which turn up on the streets of Baghdad each day are generated by the death squads whose impetus was John Negroponte. And it is this U.S.-backed sectarian violence which largely led to the hell-disaster that Iraq is today. (Dahr Jamail, Managing Escalation: Negroponte and Bush's New Iraq Team, Antiwar.com, January 7, 2007) "Colonel Steele was responsible, according to Rep. Dennis Kucinich for implementing "a plan in El Salvador under which tens of thousands Salvadorans "disappeared" or were murdered, including Archbishop Oscar Romero and four American nuns." Upon his appointment to Baghdad, Colonel Steele was assigned to a counter-insurgency unit known as the "Special Police Commando" under the Iraqi Interior Ministry" (See ACN, Havana, June 14, 2006) Reports confirm that "the US military turned over many prisoners to the Wolf Brigade, the feared 2nd battalion of the interior ministry's special commandos" which so happened to be under supervision of Colonel Steele: "US soldiers, US advisers, were standing aside and doing nothing," while members of the Wolf Brigade beat and tortured prisoners. The interior ministry commandos took over the public library in Samarra, and turned it into a detention centre, he said. An interview conducted by Maass in 2005 at the improvised prison, accompanied by the Wolf Brigade's US military adviser, Col James Steele, had been interrupted by the terrified screams of a prisoner outside, he said. Steele was reportedly previously employed as an adviser to help crush an insurgency in El Salvador." (Ibid, emphasis added) Another notorious figure who played a role in Iraq's counter-insurgency program was Former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik who in 2007 was indicted in federal court on 16 felony charges. Kerik had been appointed by the Bush administration at the outset of the occupation in 2003 to assist in the organization and training of the Iraqi Police force. During his short stint in 2003, Bernie Kerik -who took on the position of interim Minister of the Interior- worked towards organizing terror units within the Iraqi Police force: "Dispatched to Iraq to whip Iraqi security forces into shape, Kerik dubbed himself the "interim interior minister of Iraq." British police advisors called him the "Baghdad terminator," (Salon, December 9, 2004, emphasis added) Under Negroponte's helm at the US Embassy in Baghdad, a wave of covert civilian killings and targeted assassinations had been unleashed. Engineers, medical doctors, scientists and intellectuals were also targeted. Author and geopolitical analyst Max Fuller has documented in detail the atrocities committed under the US sponsored counterinsurgency program. The appearance of death squads was first highlighted in May this year , ...dozens of bodies were found casually disposed ... in vacant areas around Baghdad. All of the victims had been handcuffed, blindfolded and shot in the head and many of them also showed signs of having been brutally tortured. ... The evidence was sufficiently compelling for the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), a leading Sunni organisation, to issue public statements in which they accused the security forces attached to the Ministry of the Interior as well as the Badr Brigade, the former armed wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), of being behind the killings. They also accused the Ministry of the Interior of conducting state terrorism (Financial Times). The Police Commandos as well as the Wolf Brigade were overseen by the US counterinsurgency program in the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior: The Police Commandos were formed under the experienced tutelage and oversight of veteran US counterinsurgency fighters, and from the outset conducted joint force operations with elite and highly secretive US special forces units (Reuters, National Review Online). ...A key figure in the development of the Special Police Commandos was James Steele, a former US Army special forces operative who cut his teeth in Vietnam before moving on to direct the US military mission in El Salvador at the height of that country's civil war. ... Another US contributor was the same Steven Casteel who as the most senior US advisor within the Interior Ministry brushed off serious and well-substantiated accusations of appalling human right violations as 'rumor and innuendo'. Like Steele, Casteel gained considerable experience in Latin America, in his case participating in the hunt for the cocaine baron Pablo Escobar in Colombia's Drugs Wars of the 1990s ... Casteel's background is significant because this kind of intelligence-gathering support role and the production of death lists are characteristic of US involvement in counterinsurgency programs and constitute the underlying thread in what can appear to be random, disjointed killing sprees. Such centrally planned genocides are entirely consistent with what is taking place in Iraq today ...It is also consistent with what little we know about the Special Police Commandos, which was tailored to provide the Interior Ministry with a special-forces strike capability (US Department of Defense). In keeping with such a role, the Police Commando headquarters has become the hub of a nationwide command, control, communications, computer and intelligence operations centre, courtesy of the US. (Max Fuller, op cit) This initial groundwork established under Negroponte in 2005 was implemented under his successor Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. Robert Stephen Ford ensured the continuity of the project prior to his appointment as US Ambassador to Algeria in 2006, as well as upon his return to Baghdad as Deputy Chief of Mission in 2008. OPERATION "SYRIAN CONTRAS": LEARNING FROM THE IRAQI EXPERIENCE The gruesome Iraqi version of the "Salvador Option" under the helm of Ambassador John Negroponte has served as a "role model" for setting up the "Free Syrian Army" Contras. Robert Stephen Ford was, no doubt, involved in the implementation of the Syrian Contras project, following his reassignment to Baghdad as Deputy Head of Mission in 2008. The objective in syria was to create factional divisions between sunni, alawite, shiite, kurds, druze and christians. While the Syrian context is entirely different to that of Iraq, there are striking similarities with regard to the procedures whereby the killings and atrocities were conducted. A report published by Der Spiegel pertaining to atrocities committed in the Syrian city of Homs confirms an organized sectarian process of mass-murder and extra-judicial killings comparable to that conducted by the US sponsored death squads in Iraq. People in Homs were routinely categorized as "prisoners" (Shia, Alawite) and "traitors". The "traitors" are Sunni civilians within the rebel occupied urban area, who express their disagreement or opposition to the rule of terror of the Free Syrian Army (FSA): "Since last summer , we have executed slightly fewer than 150 men, which represents about 20 percent of our prisoners," says Abu Rami. ... But the executioners of Homs have been busier with traitors within their own ranks than with prisoners of war. "If we catch a Sunni spying, or if a citizen betrays the revolution, we make it quick," says the fighter. According to Abu Rami, Hussein's burial brigade has put between 200 and 250 traitors to death since the beginning of the uprising." (Der Spiegel, March 30, 2012) The project required an initial program of recruitment and training of mercenaries. Death squads including Lebanese and Jordanian Salafist units entered Syria's southern border with Jordan in mid-March 2011. Much of the groundwork was already in place prior to Robert Stephen Ford's arrival in Damascus in January 2011. Ford's appointment as Ambassador to Syria was announced in early 2010. Diplomatic relations had been cut in 2005 following the Rafick Hariri assassination, which Washington blamed on Syria. Ford arrived in Damascus barely two months before the onset of the insurgency. THE FREE SYRIAN ARMY (FSA) Washington and its allies replicated in Syria the essential features of the "Iraq Salvador Option", leading to the creation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and its various terrorist factions including the Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra brigades. While the creation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) was announced in June 2011, the recruitment and training of foreign mercenaries was initiated at a much an earlier period. In many regards, the Free Syrian Army is a smokescreen. It is upheld by the Western media as a bona fide military entity established as a result of mass defections from government forces. The number of defectors, however, was neither significant nor sufficient to establish a coherent military structure with command and control functions. The FSA is not a professional military entity, rather it is a loose network of separate terrorist brigades, which in turn are made up of numerous paramilitary cells operating in different parts of the country. Each of these terrorist organizations operates independently. The FSA does not effectively exercise command and control functions including liaison with these diverse paramilitary entities. The latter are controlled by US-NATO sponsored special forces and intelligence operatives which are embedded within the ranks of selected terrorist formations. These (highly trained) Special forces on the ground (many of whom are employees of private security companies) are routinely in contact with US-NATO and allied military/intelligence command units (including Turkey). These embedded Special Forces are, no doubt, also involved in the carefully planned bomb attacks directed against government buildings, military compounds, etc. The death squads are mercenaries trained and recruited by the US, NATO, its Persian Gulf GCC allies as well as Turkey. They are overseen by allied special forces (including British SAS and French Parachutistes), and private security companies on contract to NATO and the Pentagon. In this regard, reports confirm the arrest by the Syrian government of some 200-300 private security company employees who had integrated rebel ranks. THE JABHAT AL NUSRA FRONT The Al Nusra Front -which is said to be affiliated to Al Qaeda- is described as the most effective "opposition" rebel fighting group, responsible for several of the high profile bomb attacks. Portrayed as an enemy of America (on the State Department list of terrorist organizations), Al Nusra operations, nonetheless, bear the fingerprints of US paramilitary training, terror tactics and weapons systems. The atrocities committed against civilians by Al Nusra (funded covertly by US-NATO) are similar to those undertaken by the US sponsored death squads in Iraq. In the words of Al Nusra leader Abu Adnan in Aleppo: "Jabhat al-Nusra does count Syrian veterans of the Iraq war among its numbers, men who bring expertise - especially the manufacture of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) - to the front in Syria." As in Iraq, factional violence and ethnic cleansing were actively promoted. In Syria, the Alawite, Shiite and Christian communities have been the target of the US-NATO sponsored death squads. The Alawite and the Christian community are the main targets of the assassination program. Confirmed by the Vatican News Service: Christians in Aleppo are victims of death and destruction due to the fighting which for months, has been affecting the city. The Christian neighborhoods, in recent times, have been hit by rebel forces fighting against the regular army and this has caused an exodus of civilians. Some groups in the rugged opposition, where there are also jihadist groups, "fire on Christian houses and buildings, to force occupants to escape and then take possession (Agenzia Fides. Vatican News, October 19, 2012) "The Sunni Salafist militants - says the Bishop - continue to commit crimes against civilians, or to recruit fighters with force. The fanatical Sunni extremists are fighting a holy war proudly, especially against the Alawites. When terrorists seek to control the religious identity of a suspect, they ask him to cite the genealogies dating back to Moses. And they ask to recite a prayer that the Alawites removed. The Alawites have no chance to get out alive." (Agenzia Fides 04/06/2012) Reports confirm the influx of Salafist and Al Qaeda affiliated death squads as well as brigades under the auspices of the Muslim Brotherhood into Syria from the inception of the insurgency in March 2011. Moreover, reminiscent of the enlistment of the Mujahideen to wage the CIA's jihad (holy war) in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war, NATO and the Turkish High command, according to Israeli intelligence sources, had initiated" "a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011). PRIVATE SECURITY COMPANIES AND THE RECRUITMENT OF MERCENARIES According to reports, private security companies operating out of Gulf States are involved in the recruiting and training of mercenaries. Although not specifically earmarked for the recruitment of mercenaries directed against Syria, reports point to the creation of training camps in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In Zayed Military City (UAE), "a secret army is in the making" operated by Xe Services, formerly Blackwater. The UAE deal to establish a military camp for the training of mercenaries was signed in July 2010, nine months before the onslaught of the wars in Libya and Syria. In recent developments, security companies on contract to NATO and the Pentagon are involved in training "opposition" death squads in the use of chemical weapons: "The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday. (CNN Report, December 9, 2012) The names of the companies involved were not revealed. BEHIND CLOSED DOORS AT THE US STATE DEPARTMENT Robert Stephen Ford was part of a small team at the US State Department team which oversaw the recruitment and training of terrorist brigades, together with Derek Chollet and Frederic C. Hof, a former business partner of Richard Armitage, who served as Washington's "special coordinator on Syria". Derek Chollet has recently been appointed to the position of Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (ISA). This team operated under the helm of (former) Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman. Feltman's team was in close liaison with the process of recruitment and training of mercenaries out of Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Libya (courtesy of the post-Gaddafi regime, which dispatched six hundred Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) troops to Syria, via Turkey in the months following the September 2011 collapse of the Gaddafi government). Assistant Secretary of State Feltman was in contact with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, and Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim. He was also in charge of a Doha-based office for "special security coordination" pertaining to Syria, which included representatives from Western and GCC intelligence agencies well as a representative from Libya. Prince Bandar bin Sultan a prominent and controversial member of Saudi intelligence was part of this group. (See Press Tv, May 12, 2012). In June 2012, Jeffrey Feltman was appointed UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, a strategic position which, in practice, consists in setting the UN agenda (on behalf of Washington) on issues pertaining to "Conflict Resolution" in various "political hot spots" around the world (including Somalia, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Mali). In a bitter irony, the countries for UN "conflict resolution" are those which are the target of US covert operations. In liaison with the US State Department, NATO and his GCC handlers in Doha and Riyadh, Feltman is Washington's man behind UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahmi's "Peace Proposal". Meanwhile, while paying lip service to the UN Peace initiative, the US and NATO have speeded up the process of recruitment and training of mercenaries in response to the heavy casualties incurred by "opposition" rebel forces. The US proposed "end game" in Syria is not regime change, but the destruction of Syria as a Nation State. The deployment of "opposition" death squads with a mandate to kill civilians is part of this criminal undertaking. "Terrorism with a Human Face" is upheld by the United Nations Human Rights Council, which constitutes a mouthpiece for NATO "Humanitarian Interventions" under the doctrine of "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P). The atrocities committed by the US-NATO death squads are casually blamed on the government of Bashar Al Assad. According to UN Human Rights Council High Commissioner Navi Pillay: "This massive loss of life could have been avoided if the Syrian Government had chosen to take a different path than one of ruthless suppression of what were initially peaceful and legitimate protests by unarmed civilians," (quoted in Stephen Lendman, UN Human Rights Report on Syria: Camouflage of US-NATO Sponsored Massacres, Global Research, January 3, 2012) Washington's "unspeakable objective" consists in breaking up Syria as a sovereign nation -along ethnic and religious lines- into several separate and "independent" political entities. By Prof Michel Chossudovsky (Bio here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Chossudovsky) in Global Research, January 04, 2013 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=70d_1357410021 LaGrandeBouffe TERRORISM WITH A "HUMAN FACE": THE HISTORY OF AMERICA'S DEATH SQUADS Syria, FSA, Terrorism, Death Squads Mon, 12 Mar 2012 20:59:47 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=08e_1331597332 HydrogenEconomy Vids: 1. WW2: women in mfg. 2. Michael Berry addresses racist latino issue (san antonio) + MSM coverup 3. famous vid of enviro confronting Ann McElhinney http://www.drudge.com/news/154416/90-emo-teens-murdered-iraq Saturday, March 10, 2012 90 Emo Teens Murdered in Iraq At least 90 Iraqi teenagers with "emo" appearances have been stoned to death by religious extremists in Baghdad in the past month, according to the Beirut newspaper Al Akhbar. Iraq's Moral Police released a chilling statement calling "emo" youth satanists and declaring their goal to eliminate the trend. "They wear strange, tight clothes that have pictures on them such as skulls and use stationary that are shaped as skulls. They also wear rings on their noses and tongues, and do other strange activities," the group stated. Iraq's prominent Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, criticized the stonings as "an act of terrorism." - http://www.theblaze.com/stories/you-get-what-you-deserve-white-boy-13- year-old-set-on-fire-in-horrific-racially-charged-attack/ 'You Get What You Deserve, White Boy': 13-Year-Old Set on Fire in Horrific Racially Charged Attack - CAIR, NY Times smear campaign New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly has been under fire from CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), and one of America's top media enablers of radical Islam-the New York Times. Kelly has been attacked for using the documentary film "The Third Jihad" in counterterrorism training. Rep. Peter King accepts award at 2011 National Conference. Have you registered yet? Many of you have seen this film. We promoted it heavily when it was first released. Now "The Third Jihad" is fighting back. This short video is a powerful rebuttal to the smear campaign CAIR and the New York Times have waged against Commissioner Kelly. As you will see in the video, the New York Times ran an editorial that clearly alters a quote from the film to fit its story line and discredit Commissioner Kelly. We're not surprised by this. The newspaper did this to us with a story it ran in 2010, where it: Misquoted our mission statement to create an erroneous, negative perception of who ACT! for America is. Refused to correct the misquote when we caught them red-handed. And then, amazingly, claimed-without any evidence-that what they quoted was accurate and that we must have changed our website. We're not surprised by CAIR's actions either. Its representatives have viciously and dishonestly attacked legislation we have been pushing in state legislatures, "American Laws for American Courts." - The Historical Reality of the Muslim Conquests by Raymond Ibrahim Jihad Watch March 1, 2012 http://www.meforum.org/3182/history-muslim-conquests Because it is now almost axiomatic for American school textbooks to whitewash all things Islamic (see here for example), it may be instructive to examine one of those aspects that are regularly distorted: the Muslim conquests. Few events of history are so well documented and attested to as are these conquests, which commenced soon after the death of the Muslim prophet Muhammad (632) and tapered off circa 750. Large swathes of the Old World-from the India in the east, to Spain in the west-were conquered and consolidated by the sword of Islam during this time, with more after (e.g., the Ottoman conquests). By the standards of history, the reality of these conquests is unassailable, for history proper concerns itself with primary sources; and the Islamic conquests are thoroughly documented. More importantly, the overwhelming majority of primary source materials we rely on do not come from non-Muslims, who might be accused of bias. Rather, the foremost historians bequeathing to posterity thousands of pages of source materials documenting the Islamic conquests were not only Muslims themselves; they were-and still are-regarded by today's Muslims as pious and trustworthy scholars (generically, the ulema). Among the most authoritative books devoted to recounting the conquests are: Ibn Ishaq's (d. 767) Sira ("Life of Muhammad"), the oldest biography of Muhammad; Waqidi's (d. circa. 820) Maghazi ("Military Campaigns "); Baladhuri's (d. 892) Futuh al-Buldan ("Conquests of the Nations"); and Tabari's (d.923) multi-volume Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk, ("History of Prophets and Kings"), which is 40 volumes in the English translation. Taken together, these accounts (which are primarily based on older accounts- oral and written-tracing back to Muhammad and his successors) provide what was once, and in the Muslim world still is, a famous story: that Allah had perfected religion (Islam) for all humanity; that he commanded his final prophet (Muhammad) and community (Muslims) to spread Islam to the world; and that the latter was/is to accept it either willingly or unwillingly (jihad). It should be noted that contemporary non-Muslim accounts further validate the facts of the conquests. The writings of the Christian bishop of Jerusalem Sophronius (d.638), for instance, or the chronicles of the Byzantine historian Theophanes (d.758), to name a couple, make clear that Muslims conquered much of what is today called the "Muslim world." According to the Muslim historical tradition, the majority of non-Muslim peoples of the Old World, not desiring to submit to Islam or its laws (Sharia), fought back, though most were eventually defeated and subsumed. The first major conquest, renowned for its brutality, occurred in Arabia itself, immediately after Muhammad's death in 632. Many tribes which had only nominally accepted Islam's authority, upon Muhammad's death, figured they could break away; however, Muhammad's successor and first caliph, or successor, Abu Bakr, would have none of that, and proclaimed a jihad against these apostates, known in Arabic as the "Ridda Wars" (or Apostasy Wars). According to the aforementioned historians, tens of thousands of Arabs were put to the sword until their tribes re-submitted to Islam. The Ridda Wars ended around 634. To keep the Arab Muslims from quarreling, the next caliph, Omar, launched the Muslim conquests: Syria was conquered around 636, Egypt 641, Mesopotamia and the Persian Empire, 650. By the early 8th century, all of north Africa and Spain to the west, and the lands of central Asia and India to the east, were also brought under Islamic suzerainty. The colorful accounts contained in the Muslim tradition are typified by constant warfare, which normally goes as follows: Muslims go to a new region and offer the inhabitants three choices: 1) submit (i.e., convert) to Islam; 2) live as second-class citizens, or "dhimmis," paying special taxes and accepting several social debilitations; 3) fight to the death. Centuries later, and partially due to trade, Islam came to be accepted by a few periphery peoples, mostly polytheists and animists, who followed no major religion (e.g., in Indonesia, Somalia), and who currently form the outer fringes of the Islamic world. Ironically, these exceptions are now portrayed as the rule in America's classrooms: many textbooks suggest or at least imply that most people who converted to Islam did so under no duress, but rather through peaceful contacts with merchants and traders; that they eagerly opted to convert to Islam for the religion's intrinsic appeal, without noting the many debilitations conquered non-Muslims avoided-extra taxes, second-rate social status, enforced humiliation, etc.-by converting to Islam. In fact, in the first century, and due to these debilitations, many conquered peoples sought to convert to Islam only to be rebuffed by the caliphate, which preferred to keep them as subdued-and heavily taxed-subjects, not as Muslim equals. Meanwhile, as U.S. textbooks equivocate about the Muslim conquests, in the schoolrooms of the Muslim world, the conquests are not only taught as a matter of course, but are glorified: their rapidity and decisiveness are regularly portrayed as evidence that Allah was in fact on the side of the Muslims (and will be again, so long as Muslims uphold their communal duty of waging jihad). The dissimulation of how Islam was spread in the early centuries contained in Western textbook's mirrors the way the word jihad, once inextricable to the conquests, has also been recast. Whereas the word jihad has throughout the centuries simply meant armed warfare on behalf of Islam, in recent years, American students have been taught the Sufi interpretation of jihad-Sufis make up perhaps one percent of the Islamic world and are often seen as heretics with aberrant interpretations-which portrays jihad as a "spiritual-struggle" against one's vices. Contrast this definition of jihad with that of an early edition of the venerable Encyclopaedia of Islam. Its opening sentence simply states, "The spread of Islam by arms is a religious duty upon Muslims in general.... Jihad must continue to be done until the whole world is under the rule of Islam.... Islam must completely be made over before the doctrine of jihad can be eliminated." Muslim legal manuals written in Arabic are even more explicit. Likewise, the Islamic conquests narrated in the Muslim histories often mirror the doctrinal obligations laid out in Islam's theological texts-the Koran and Hadith. Muslim historians often justify the actions of the early Islamic invaders by juxtaposing the jihad injunctions found in Islamic scriptures. It should also be noted that, to Muslims, the Islamic conquests are seen as acts of altruism: they are referred to as futuh, which literally means "openings"-that is, the countries conquered were "opened" for the light of Islam to enter and guide its infidel inhabitants. Thus to Muslims, there is nothing to regret or apologize for concerning the conquests; they are seen as for the good of those who were conquered (i.e., the ancestors of today's Muslims). In closing, the fact of the Muslim conquests, by all standards of history, is indisputable. Accordingly, just as less than impressive aspects of Western and Christian history, such as the Inquisition or conquest of the Americas, are regularly taught in U.S. textbooks, so too should the Muslim conquests be taught, without apology or fear of being politically incorrect. This is especially so because it concerns history-which has a way of repeating itself when ignored, or worse, whitewashed. - When will the unseemly groveling end? According to an AP story (below), "A senior Pentagon official apologized Friday to Washington-area Muslims for the burning of Qurans..." Not just once, but multiple times. One of those apologized to was Mohamed Magid, president of ISNA (Islamic Society of North America). ISNA is one of 29 organizations listed as "friends" in the Muslim Brotherhood strategy memo calling for "civilization jihad" against America. ISNA was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial. Let's all remember that militant Muslims defaced these Qur'ans in violation of sharia law. These jihadist enemy combatants were using the Qur'ans to pass messages to each other. Scroll to the end of the article below and you'll be shocked to learn that one Muslim interviewed did not believe the latest apology was sufficient. No amount of groveling will satisfy, so enough already! Pentagon apologizes for Koran burning to unindicted co-conspirator at terror- linked VA mosque Posted on February 27, 2012 by creeping This government is complicit if not treasonous. Muslims are killing Americans and NATO is promising to prosecute those who burned Korans used to send messages among jihadis. via Pentagon official apologizes for Quran burning - USATODAY.com. STERLING, Virginia (AP) - A senior Pentagon official apologized Friday to Washington-area Muslims for the burning of Qurans at a military base in Afghanistan. Peter Lavoy, acting assistant secretary of defense for Asia and Pacific security affairs, said the military is investigating what occurred and that all 140,000 coalition troops in Afghanistan are being retrained in the handling of religious materials. Lavoy apologized multiple times during a brief speech during prayer services at the ADAMS Center in Sterling, one of the largest mosques in the country. "I come here today to apologize on behalf of the Department of Defense for the incident that took place in Afghanistan this week," Lavoy told worshippers, saying the burnings were done "unknowingly and improperly." Lavoy's remarks at the suburban Washington mosque follow protests across Afghanistan over the burning of several Qurans at a U.S. military base. Military officials say at least 20 people have died in the protests, including two U.S. soldiers. Imam Mohamed Magid, executive director of the ADAMS Center mosque and president of the Islamic Society of North America, said Friday's session was designed to let Muslims around the world know that American Muslims were also concerned about the incident but were able to express those concerns and receive an apology and promise of a thorough investigation without resorting to violence. "It was very satisfying, very heartwarming to hear an apology three times in one speech," Magid said after the services. Magid said Muslims across the world are rightfully concerned and upset to hear that Qurans were burned in a careless manner. But he said that "absolutely the violence we have seen is unacceptable from an Islamic perspective." Magid said the Pentagon reached out to him and other Muslim leaders earlier this week, and he went to the Pentagon on Thursday to meet with officials, who offered to come to his mosque and speak directly to its members. "As American Muslims we engage with our government and we hold them accountable if something goes wrong," Magid told nearly 1,000 worshippers during midday services. Lavoy did not take questions from worshippers or reporters after Friday's speech. Not everyone who heard Lavoy's speech was satisfied. Mauri Saalakhan of Silver Spring, Md., who operates the Peace Thru Justice Foundation and came to ADAMS Center to hear Lavoy's remarks, said that an apology is helpful but insufficient. He said he simply does not believe that the Qurans were mistakenly burned and that the burnings of the Quran are relatively minor compared to the suffering that has been inflicted on the Afghan people as a result of the war. - Ahmed Bedier: File this one under "don't believe for a moment that our efforts aren't making a difference." For over three years ACT! for America has been shouting from the rooftops about who CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) really is and what their real agenda is. ACT! for America chapter leaders in Florida have exposed people like Ahmed Bedier, the founder of the Tampa chapter of CAIR. The short article below provides just one example of how these efforts are paying off. When a Democratic U.S. Senator returns a contribution from a former CAIR official like Bedier, that tells us we're making progress. Nelson rejects contribution from former CAIR official http://www.tboblogs.com/index.php/news/story/nelson-returns-contribution- from-former-cair-official/ Posted Nov 8, 2011 by William March Updated Nov 8, 2011 at 06:18 PM U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, who's running for re-election, has rejected a contribution from a man associated with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim group that has been accused in the past of links to radical organizations. The donor, Ahmed Bedier, is the former Tampa director of the organization, which says it rejects terrorism and violence and denies any charges of having links to or supporting terrorist organizations. According to a campaign spokesman, Bedier attended a Nelson fundraiser held last month by Manal Fakhoury, a prominent Ocala pharmacist, at her home. "Fakhoury sent out the invitation and decided whom to invite," according to a statement from the campaign. Attendees included "a city council member, a local law enforcement official and a number of area business and civic leaders." "Sen. Nelson does not know Mr. Bedier, who made a relatively small contribution of $500." The campaign returned Bedier's check because it "learned of some highly controversial statements Bedier made about Israel" which disagree with Nelson's views, the statement said. CAIR publicizes and opposes incidents of hostility or discrimination against American Muslims, and says it is an organization devoted to furthering religious tolerance, diversity and civil rights. However, federal investigators have said the organization at one time had ties to an organization created to support Hamas, which the federal government considers a terrorist group. - http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx? c=ewJXKcOUJlIaG&b=7712195&ct=11660499&notoc=1&tr=y&auid=1042 7603#.T159yPV618E Continues Share on hotmailShare on facebookShare on twitterShare on emailMore Sharing Services5 Home > v2 - English > HP - English - Feature Story Million Israelis in Shelters as Rocket Terror Continues More than 160 rockets fired at civilian targets Quarter million students kept home from school for safety Five different Palestinian terror groups claim responsibility Kindergarten children in Nativ Ha'asara near the Gaza border take cover in a bomb shelter during a similar rocket attack last year. Jerusalem, Mar. 11 - Palestinian terror groups in Gaza fired more rockets at Israeli towns and cities Sunday, forcing one million Israelis into bomb shelters and closing schools for a quarter million students. Since Friday, Palestinians fired more than 160 rockets and mortars from Gaza at Israeli communities, wounding at least eight Israeli civilians. Five different Palestinian terror groups claimed responsibility for the attacks. In statements to the media on Saturday, the Popular Resistance Committee (PRC), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Al-Aqsa brigades, Abdul Qader Al- Hussaini Brigades and Islamic Jihad all boasted that they had fired at Israel. The Gaza Strip is controlled by the Iran-backed Hamas terror organization, which rejects the peace process and allows other terror groups to operate openly. "We hold Hamas responsible for the recent incidents since the terror organization currently has jurisdiction in the area," said Israeli army spokesman Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai. "The Hamas movement, although it is not the one performing the launchings, is not doing anything to prevent it either - We hold them responsible and will continue to defend and attack as necessary." Terror groups had launched at least 59 rocket and mortar attacks so far in 2012, including two early Friday that prompted an Israel Air Force attack Friday afternoon, killing PRC leader Zuhir al-Qaisi. The Israeli military said it also had intelligence reports that al-Qaisi's group was preparing to stage another attack similar to a PRC assault last August that left eight Israelis and five Egyptians dead. Over the weekend the Israel Air Force targeted rocket launching teams, killing at least 15 terrorists. Palestinian sources confirmed that all 16 deaths on their side were militants, with reports Sunday saying two Palestinian civilians were among the 18 dead. The Israeli-made Iron Dome air defense system successfully shot down at least 41 of the rockets that were heading towards heavily populated centers, including the cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beer Sheva. Despite the escalation of violence, Israeli security officials decided to leave the border crossings in the Gaza strip open for commercial and aid shipments. So far this year, the number of rockets fired from Gaza at Israeli civilians has reached 261, according to a count by The Israel Project. - http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=106938 America's Most Biblically-Hostile U. S. President David Barton - 02/29/2012 When one observes President Obama's unwillingness to accommodate America's four-century long religious conscience protection through his attempts to require Catholics to go against their own doctrines and beliefs, one is tempted to say that he is anti-Catholic. But that characterization would not be correct. Although he has recently singled out Catholics, he has equally targeted traditional Protestant beliefs over the past four years. So since he has attacked Catholics and Protestants, one is tempted to say that he is anti-Christian. But that, too, would be inaccurate. He has been equally disrespectful in his appalling treatment of religious Jews in general and Israel in particular. So perhaps the most accurate description of his antipathy toward Catholics, Protestants, religious Jews, and the Jewish nation would be to characterize him as anti-Biblical. And then when his hostility toward Biblical people of faith is contrasted with his preferential treatment of Muslims and Muslim nations, it further strengthens the accuracy of the anti-Biblical descriptor. In fact, there have been numerous clearly documented times when his pro-Islam positions have been the cause of his anti-Biblical actions. Listed below in chronological order are (1) numerous records of his attacks on Biblical persons or organizations; (2) examples of the hostility toward Biblical faith that have become evident in the past three years in the Obama-led military; (3) a listing of his open attacks on Biblical values; and finally (4) a listing of numerous incidents of his preferential deference for Islam's activities and positions, including letting his Islamic advisors guide and influence his hostility toward people of Biblical faith. 1. Acts of hostility toward people of Biblical faith: April 2008 - Obama speaks disrespectfully of Christians, saying they "cling to guns or religion" and have an "antipathy to people who aren't like them." 1 February 2009 - Obama announces plans to revoke conscience protection for health workers who refuse to participate in medical activities that go against their beliefs, and fully implements the plan in February 2011. 2 April 2009 - When speaking at Georgetown University, Obama orders that a monogram symbolizing Jesus' name be covered when he is making his speech. 3 May 2009 - Obama declines to host services for the National Prayer Day (a day established by federal law) at the White House. 4 April 2009 - In a deliberate act of disrespect, Obama nominated three pro- abortion ambassadors to the Vatican; of course, the pro-life Vatican rejected all three. 5 October 19, 2010 - Obama begins deliberately omitting the phrase about "the Creator" when quoting the Declaration of Independence - an omission he has made on no less than seven occasions. 6 November 2010 - Obama misquotes the National Motto, saying it is "E pluribus unum" rather than "In God We Trust" as established by federal law. 7 January 2011 - After a federal law was passed to transfer a WWI Memorial in the Mojave Desert to private ownership, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the cross in the memorial could continue to stand, but the Obama administration refused to allow the land to be transferred as required by law, and refused to allow the cross to be re-erected as ordered by the Court. 8 February 2011 - Although he filled posts in the State Department, for more than two years Obama did not fill the post of religious freedom ambassador, an official that works against religious persecution across the world; he filled it only after heavy pressure from the public and from Congress. 9 April 2011 - For the first time in American history, Obama urges passage of a non-discrimination law that does not contain hiring protections for religious groups, forcing religious organizations to hire according to federal mandates without regard to the dictates of their own faith, thus eliminating conscience protection in hiring. 10 August 2011 - The Obama administration releases its new health care rules that override religious conscience protections for medical workers in the areas of abortion and contraception. 11 November 2011 - Obama opposes inclusion of President Franklin Roosevelt's famous D-Day Prayer in the WWII Memorial. 12 November 2011 - Unlike previous presidents, Obama studiously avoids any religious references in his Thanksgiving speech. 13 December 2011 - The Obama administration denigrates other countries' religious beliefs as an obstacle to radical homosexual rights. 14 January 2012 - The Obama administration argues that the First Amendment provides no protection for churches and synagogues in hiring their pastors and rabbis. 15 February 2012 - The Obama administration forgives student loans in exchange for public service, but announces it will no longer forgive student loans if the public service is related to religion. 16 2. Acts of hostility from the Obama-led military toward people of Biblical faith: June 2011 - The Department of Veterans Affairs forbids references to God and Jesus during burial ceremonies at Houston National Cemetery. 17 August 2011 - The Air Force stops teaching the Just War theory to officers in California because the course is taught by chaplains and is based on a philosophy introduced by St. Augustine in the third century AD - a theory long taught by civilized nations across the world (except America). 18 September 2011 - Air Force Chief of Staff prohibits commanders from notifying airmen of programs and services available to them from chaplains. 19 September 2011 - The Army issues guidelines for Walter Reed Medical Center stipulating that "No religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading materials and/or facts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit." 20 November 2011 - The Air Force Academy rescinds support for Operation Christmas Child, a program to send holiday gifts to impoverished children across the world, because the program is run by a Christian charity. 21 November 2011 - The Air Force Academy pays $80,000 to add a Stonehenge-like worship center for pagans, druids, witches and Wiccans. 22 February 2012 - The U. S. Military Academy at West Point disinvites three star Army general and decorated war hero Lieutenant General William G. ("Jerry") Boykin (retired) from speaking at an event because he is an outspoken Christian. 23 February 2012 - The Air Force removes "God" from the patch of Rapid Capabilities Office (the word on the patch was in Latin: Dei). 24 February 2012 - The Army orders Catholic chaplains not to read a letter to parishioners that their archbishop asked them to read. 25 3. Acts of hostility toward Biblical values: January 2009 - Obama lifts restrictions on U.S. government funding for groups that provide abortion services or counseling abroad, forcing taxpayers to fund pro-abortion groups that either promote or perform abortions in other nations. 26 January 2009 - President Obama's nominee for deputy secretary of state asserts that American taxpayers are required to pay for abortions and that limits on abortion funding are unconstitutional. 27 March 2009 - The Obama administration shut out pro-life groups from attending a White House-sponsored health care summit. 28 March 2009 - Obama orders taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research. 29 March 2009 - Obama gave $50 million for the UNFPA, the UN population agency that promotes abortion and works closely with Chinese population control officials who use forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations. 30 May 2009 - The White House budget eliminates all funding for abstinence- only education and replaces it with "comprehensive" sexual education, repeatedly proven to increase teen pregnancies and abortions. 31 He continues the deletion in subsequent budgets. 32 May 2009 - Obama officials assemble a terrorism dictionary calling pro-life advocates violent and charging that they use racism in their "criminal" activities. 33 July 2009 - The Obama administration illegally extends federal benefits to same-sex partners of Foreign Service and Executive Branch employees, in direction violation of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. 34 September 16, 2009 - The Obama administration appoints as EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum, who asserts that society should "not tolerate" any "private beliefs," including religious beliefs, if they may negatively affect homosexual "equality." 35 July 2010 - The Obama administration uses federal funds in violation of federal law to get Kenya to change its constitution to include abortion. 36 August 2010 - The Obama administration Cuts funding for 176 abstinence education programs. 37 September 2010 - The Obama administration tells researchers to ignore a judge's decision striking down federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. 38 February 2011 - Obama directs the Justice Department to stop defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act. 39 March 2011 - The Obama administration refuses to investigate videos showing Planned Parenthood helping alleged sex traffickers get abortions for victimized underage girls. 40 July 2011 - Obama allows homosexuals to serve openly in the military, reversing a policy originally instituted by George Washington in March 1778. 41 September 2011 - The Pentagon directs that military chaplains may perform same-sex marriages at military facilities in violation of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. 42 October 2011 - The Obama administration eliminates federal grants to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for their extensive programs that aid victims of human trafficking because the Catholic Church is anti-abortion. 43 4. Acts of preferentialism for Islam: May 2009 - While Obama does not host any National Day of Prayer event at the White House, he does host White House Iftar dinners in honor of Ramadan. 44 April 2010 - Christian leader Franklin Graham is disinvited from the Pentagon's National Day of Prayer Event because of complaints from the Muslim community. 45 April 2010 - The Obama administration requires rewriting of government documents and a change in administration vocabulary to remove terms that are deemed offensive to Muslims, including jihad, jihadists, terrorists, radical Islamic, etc. 46 August 2010 - Obama speaks with great praise of Islam and condescendingly of Christianity. 47 August 2010 - Obama went to great lengths to speak out on multiple occasions on behalf of building an Islamic mosque at Ground Zero, while at the same time he was silent about a Christian church being denied permission to rebuild at that location. 48 2010 - While every White House traditionally issues hundreds of official proclamations and statements on numerous occasions, this White House avoids traditional Biblical holidays and events but regularly recognizes major Muslim holidays, as evidenced by its 2010 statements on Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Hajj, and Eid-ul-Adha. 49 October 2011 - Obama's Muslim advisers block Middle Eastern Christians' access to the White House. 50 February 2012 - The Obama administration makes effulgent apologies for Korans being burned by the U. S. military, 51 but when Bibles were burned by the military, numerous reasons were offered why it was the right thing to do. 52 Many of these actions are literally unprecedented - this is the first time they have happened in four centuries of American history. The hostility of President Obama toward Biblical faith and values is without equal from any previous American president. - Gangster Government and Your Guns by Matthew Bracken Author of "Enemies Foreign and Domestic" * * 1 * * For over a year now, the Department of Justice has been stone-walling the House committees investigating Operation Fast And Furious, wherein thousands of semi-automatic rifles ("assault rifles" in the liberal lexicon) were deliberately allowed to "walk" into Mexico, straight into the hands of drug cartel killers. One of those weapons was used to murder Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry a dozen miles inside of U.S. territory. The actual killer is believed to be an FBI "informant." In other words, a cartel assassin in his own right, but also a valuable "asset" in the FBI's consideration. The FBI and DOJ have been shielding this killer, while obstructing the delivery of justice to the Brian Terry family. On the other side of the border, ICE Agent Jaime Zapata was also murdered with a "gun-walked" weapon, along with over three-hundred innocent Mexican citizens as of this date. And where is the elite Mainstream Media in its coverage of this festering scandal of such epic proportions? Over the past year they have dedicated scant minutes to the scandal, and then, usually to parrot the Obama administration's lies and obfuscations. Just during one recent week, the elite media spent countless hours covering the death and funeral of a beloved celebrity drug addict, compared to the few minutes they have spent covering Operation Fast And Furious during all of the last year. Under Operation Fast And Furious, and related DOJ-ATF gun-walking schemes in at least five states, there was no plan or means to track the weapons after their sale. Licensed gun dealers were coerced by the BATFE into making repeated bulk sales, even when they expressed grave concern about the persons buying the weapons, including known felons. Federal cash was provided to the straw purchasers when they did not have their own money. As conceived and carried out, the intended purpose of Operation Fast and Furious was to rack up a bloody body count in Mexico, in order to discredit the Right to Keep and Bear Arms as spelled out in the Second Amendment of the Constitution. The murdered Mexicans were intended to buttress the false claim that ninety percent of the weapons recovered in Mexico after gangland shootings came from American gun dealers. In short, the Obama administration conducted a program of mass murder for political purposes. Or, as President Obama put it to Sarah Brady, he was still pursuing a gun control agenda, but "under the radar." It is hard to conceive of a federal "law enforcement operation" more evil from top to bottom than Operation Fast And Furious. * * 2 * * smalline By comparison, consider the Watergate scandal, which at the time was generally called "a third-rate burglary." I was a teenage construction worker the summer of 1973 when the Senate Hearings took place. Out on the construction sites, you could hear radios playing the hearings all through the day. The radio and television networks suspended normal programming in that pre-cable era to bombard America with gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Watergate hearings. We all know the result of that non-stop media focus: President Nixon soon resigned in disgrace to avoid impeachment, and U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell was sent to prison. And all over a bungled political burglary, where nobody was killed or even hurt. But imagine for a moment if President Nixon's men, when called before the committees investigating the Watergate scandal, had provided less than twenty percent of subpoenaed documents after a full year of ignoring requests and congressional pleadings. Then further imagine that among the twenty percent of the documents that were provided to Congress, hundreds of pages were "fully redacted," or completely blacked out. Black paper, by the ream. In diplo-speak, this is leaning across the witness table toward the congressional investigators, giving them two middle fingers and a hearty, "F--- you, you punks, what are you going to do about it?" Then imagine if the New York Times, the Washington Post and the television networks never mentioned Watergate or the hearings, except rarely, and then only to refer to the congressional investigators as partisan hacks on witch-hunts, simply bent on destroying the nation's beloved President Nixon and stopping his good works. In this alternate reality, Woodward and Bernstein never got a Watergate by-line, but instead they were sent to cover the new "ecology" movement and Earth Day. Reverse the party polarity, jump ahead four decades to today, and that is the current sad state of American reality. Gangsters rule the federal government; the Operation Fast And Furious congressional investigators are ineffectual, toothless buffoons, and their spineless congressional leaders even balk at further investigation of the deadly scandal. In the modern case of Operation Fast and Furious, hundreds of Mexicans were murdered as a necessary pre-condition for a desired political outcome, the undercutting of Second Amendment rights in America. From the outset, the administration's goal was to bury our Right to Keep and Bear Arms beneath a growing mountain of Mexican corpses. The innocent murdered Mexicans were not collateral damage of Operation Fast and Furious, they were the intended targets from the start. Murdergate, plain and simple. Dear readers, it does not get more evil than that. Attorney General Holder and his lieutenants have repeatedly lied and are repeatedly caught lying, so they make up more lies, bald-face lies, contradicted by email records and their own words. But no charges of perjury ensue from Congress, only more extensions of meaningless deadlines to produce the subpoenaed documents and all of the witnesses who have been called to testify, but who have simply refused to appear. Two middle fingers, and a hearty "F--- you." MAINSTREAM MEDIA'S BLATANT TRICKERY And not only does the elite Mainstream Media ignore the story, thereby shielding the Obama administration from answering for Operation Fast and Furious or many other administration scandals, they actually take an active role in promulgating the latest messages put out by the Obama White House. One recent blatant example will suffice. Most viewers were bewildered at the Republican primary debate in New Hampshire on January 7, when moderator George Stephanopoulos of ABC News asked, and continued to ask, seemingly off-topic questions about the candidates' views on, of all possible subjects, birth control. We now understand that current White House War Room "General" Valerie Jarrett has been conducting weekly planning meetings with representatives from the hard-left Media Matters, for the purpose of delivering the latest administration "talking points" and strategic memes to their cooperating friends in the elite media and thereby to the public at large. Then lo and behold, the original Clinton White House War Room "General" George Stephanopoulos just happened to pick debate questions not about Operation Fast And Furious, but, of all things, the birth control meme that the Obama White House wanted to float, as a diversion from discussing the perilous state of the economy. And wildly successful it has been, this meme-making machine, at keeping the Republican candidates off-message and off-balance. A horribly biased media that will not even investigate Operation Fast And Furious will certainly not investigate this grossly transparent act of political prostitution by "journalist" George Stephanopoulos. In graphic terms, this was not merely discreet political sex for a quiet off-camera payoff; this was naked, grunting copulation at high noon, on the public square. Even so, today almost nobody will say aloud what needs to be said: George Stephanopoulos has now proven himself a political whore of the lowest stripe, but even worse than that, he has shown himself to be a serving member in good standing of Gangster Government, Inc. And his colleagues in the elite liberal media establishment are fine with that, because they are also complicit, either knowingly or unknowingly. George Stephanopoulos does the political bidding of Valerie Jarrett and Media Matters, making him a willing stooge and a critical cog in Gangster Government, Inc., thereby disgracing both his family name and the occupation of journalist. He will go down in history as a dishonorable scoundrel, who put his shared liberal political agendas ahead of any bare pretense at making an honest search for the truth concerning deadly scandals such as Operation Fast and Furious, which by objective measures is the worst political scandal of the modern era. * * 3 * * Let's return to Watergate. When the activities of the Nixon White House "Plumbers" became known, a vigorous media examination provided the clean water and bleach to quickly disinfect the mess and restore the integrity of government institutions. Officials as high as the U.S. Attorney General went to prison, and President Nixon was forced from office in abject disgrace. However, nothing like that happens today, under the willfully averted gaze of "state-controlled media." Operation Fast and Furious, a scandal that is demonstrably orders of magnitude worse than Watergate, gets a complete pass. The MSM is too busy covering the latest celebrity escapades to be bothered with mere mass-murder, carried out as an intended part of a federal "law enforcement operation" at the Obama administration's direction. Why spend so much time on this comparison between the Watergate scandal and Operation Fast and Furious? Because it is the Rosetta stone for understanding how Obama's Gangster Government came creeping in, bent on turning the United States into a socialist total control grid, where vestigial scraps of American freedom will be doled out by the State to obedient subjects. When a Gangster Government is not opposed by an honest media or the threat of meaningful congressional hearings, it is emboldened and it advances. This is the outcome of President Obama's new policy of ruling by executive decree, and his repeatedly stating that, "If the Congress won't act, I will." "So what?" you may ask. "We live in a corrupt age, so we have a corrupt government. And not for the first, or the last time." No, I'm sorry, but this is not the same as anything seen before. Hold on to the example of Watergate: a third-rate political burglary, under a constant media spotlight, leading to the end of a presidency, and an attorney general in prison. Compare that to Operation Fast And Furious: a covert policy of mass murder for political benefit, followed by feeble congressional investigations, with exactly zero elite media interest. It is an objective metric to compare Watergate to Murdergate. The current lack of accountability leaves the Obama administration emboldened to move further away from adherence to the Constitutional limitations they swore to uphold. "If the Congress won't act, I will," may be translated into standard English as, "To hell with the Constitution, I am in charge, and nobody can stop m FoxNews.com cross at work, says Government Christians do not have a right to wear a cross or crucifix openly at work, the Government is to argue in a landmark court case. - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020396080457723992303334 8982.html?mod=googlenews_wsj Israel and the Plight of Mideast Christians Just as Jews were once expelled from Arab lands, Christians are now being forced from countries they have long inhabited. - http://victoriataftkpam.blogspot.com/2012/03/breitbart-vetting-iii-obama- mentor-i.html DAY 158 Friday, March 09, 2012 Breitbart, The Vetting III: Obama Mentor, "I Live to Harass White Folks" - fresh on the failure of Dearbornistan muslim show by TLC, Bravo does a sharia lite one on rich Iranians in beverly hills..see, they're ok, they're just like us.. http://www.jewishjournal.com/hollywoodjew/item/the_real_shame_in_the_shahs _of_sunset_20120312/ - http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/03/08/un-group-under-fire-for- keeping-syria-on-human-rights-panel/ Politics UN group under fire for keeping Syria on human rights panel Published March 08, 2012 - http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/09/us-protests-oakland-lawsuit- idUSBRE82805W20120309?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews Oakland sues anti-Wall Street protester over smashed windows - http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/153599%23.T1oJV3lXC up#.T16I3PV618F Hamas Beats Reporters in Gaza Three reporters covering a mass wedding in Gaza City were brutally beaten by Hamas security forces. 2. I bet it happened right as the ceremony was gettin' goin'. If anyone knows why these two should not be wed, shoot now or forever hold your peace lover......... Mashoom Sheepkissah, do you take Aisha Lookslikeagoat to be your Shari'a-lawfully-wedded third wife, to have and to abuse, to beat and to maim, until her murder at your hands do you part ?......... Yes, it is my duty as a Son Of Allah (PBUH)......... Aisha Lookslikeagoat, you have no say in the matter - I pronounce you married - Tally-Ho Snackbar ! Kenny Solomon, South Florida (9/3/12) Reply to comment 17 Thanx for the laugh, Kenny, but as to the reporters.... ....I cannot get a lot of sympathy up for dopes who go into places like Gaza -- remember those American kids who "wandered into Iran" while "hiking" as if a sane goes hiking without a map and prefers hiking on the border of Iran to the California Sierras, Canadian Rockies, or Swiss Alps. Those reporters had to have known that the mohammedeans are goofy and irrational, so I have no real sympathy to waste on them than I would on a guy whose bungee cord broke. Ya takes yer chances. Louie, Quebec (9/3/12) - http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/45113 1990 video shows Barack Hussein Obama at a Harvard protest publicly speaking in favor of Professor Derek (I live to irritate White people) Bell Vetting Obama: an epic failure Author - Doug Hagmann Thursday, March 8, 2012 - all black juveniles, btw.. http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Tuba-Man-killer-charged-in-a- separate-gun-case-141706633.html - one druggie had 14 guns, lets set a cap.. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-06/call-for-cap-on-gun- numbers/3871110 - http://www.redstate.com/absentee/2011/02/16/enviros-cpac-ambush-backfires/ Enviro's CPAC Ambush Backfires Posted by Caleb Howe (Diary) Wednesday, February 16th at 5:30PM EDT 57 Comments - http://blog.trutv.com/dumb_as_a_blog/2012/03/dumb-judge-allegedly-pulls- gun-and-tells-victim-to-shoot-your-lawyer.html Dumb judge allegedly pulls gun and tells victim to 'shoot your lawyer' - http://www.theblaze.com/stories/meet-evie-obamas-transgender-ex-nanny-in- indonesia/ Meet 'Evie' - Obama's Transgender Ex-Nanny in Indonesia Posted on March 5, 2012 at 8:59am by Billy Hallowell Billy Hallowell JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Once, long ago, Evie looked after "Barry" Obama, the kid who would grow up to become the world's most powerful man. Now, his transgender former nanny has given up her tight, flowery dresses, her brocade vest and her bras, and is living in fear on Indonesia's streets. - http://www.theblaze.com/stories/former-agent-new-bill-effectively-outlaws- protests-anywhere-secret-service-deems-off-limits/ ormer Agent: New Bill Effectively Outlaws Protests Anywhere Secret Service Deems Off Limits - http://www.theblaze.com/stories/three-occupy-oakland-members-charged- with-robbery-hate-crimes-after-allegedly-attacking-woman-during-protest/ Three Occupy Oakland Members Charged With Robbery, Hate Crimes After Allegedly Attacking Woman During Protest - http://www.theblaze.com/stories/the-1-percent-criminals-youll-never-guess- where-occupy-wall-street-supporters-held-a-recent-conference/ 'The 1 Percent Criminals': You'll Never Guess Where Occupy Wall Street Supporters Held a Recent Conference (Tehran, Iran) - feral black slaughters a Grandmother, After she gives him the cash: http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/metro/woman-fatally-shot-at- northwest-indiana-convenience-store-20120305 http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/metro/judi-simpson-beaver- merrilleville-indiana-family-mourns-loss-mother-beg-help-find-killer-20120306 http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=8571749 http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/03/07/report-2-questioned-in-merrillville- store-robbery-murder-of-clerk/judi-simpson-beaver-03 http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-03-06/news/ct-met-merrillville-store- clerk-robbed-killed-20120306_1_surveillance-video-gunman-robbery07/ http://www.chicagotribune.com/videogallery/68575635/News/WGN-Video- Clerk-dead-after-armed-robbery http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-store-clerk-shot-dead- in-nw-indiana-store-20120304,0,2746219.story March 08, 2012 I just recently moved here to Merrillville, IN from Chicago and I must say that my encounters at the store with Ms. Judi was one of the best I've had with anyone since moving here. She was the sweetest woman you could ever meet. She always went above and beyond at the store. When I read the story I could not stop crying for hours. My 6 year old saw her picture and said "that's the lady who put cheese on my chips!" Not knowing we will never see that pretty smiling face again. Be encouraged family and friends. We know Judi was a Christian and we are all trying to get to where she is going so that we can see her again. ~ Merrillville, Indiana March 08, 2012 Judi was my friend for 35 years...I'll miss her for the rest of my life. My deepest sympathy to her family. New Hampshire March 08, 2012 Judi and I have been friends since we were very young....we have travelled the world together and share the most wonderful memories. I will always love you Judi, you will always be a part of me and who I am today!!! My thoughts and prayers are with the family. I love you all. ~ Eggleston, UK - http://www.theblaze.com/stories/afl-cio-boss-denies-paying-occupy-cpac- demonstrators-despite-video-of-protesters-admitting-transaction/ AFL-CIO Boss Denies Paying Occupy CPAC Demonstrators Despite Video of Protesters Admitting Transaction - remember who got Texas removed from the GOP's Super Tuesday? yep, racist Latino groups... - http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=08e_1331597332 HydrogenEconomy ahmed bedier racist rant Tampa - 90 "EMO" iraqi teens slaughtered for 'bad hair' obama,barry,soetoro,islam,muslim,ahmed,bedier,emo,teens