What Your Government Has Done For You Today

[glenn kangiser]

I have always said I was an anarchist or at least anti-authoritarian.  I'm right there with you, Peter.

[glenn kangiser]

Notable just because this is the guy the Bush family has "adopted" as their son,  Dubya's brother.  Shows a bit of the family character.  I skimmed it - seems a little towns pension is in jeopardy buy his corruption or something.  Bandar Bush they call him.  2 Billion in bribes accepted.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91332402

[ScottA]

Seems like national security really means government security. At what dollar amount does theft stop being criminal and simply becomes corruption that no one does anything about?

[glenn kangiser]

As the dollar amounts get larger, less and less attention is paid to it as these ripoffs are generally pulled by our leaders. 
As you implied -- it's business as usual.  They won't do anything about it as they are for the most part, all pulling the same stuff.

[Sassy]

Read a really disturbing article about some of our troops in Iraq...

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/23/suicide_or_murder_three_years_after

[ScottA]

I can not remember there ever having been a time with so many cover-ups, secrets, lies, threats and just down right nasty stuff going on in the government / military. WW3 is almost here folks. Get ready. The whole damn navy is headed to the persian gulf and the propaganda is puoring out. Iran is bad. Pakistan is bad. China is bad and now Russia is bad again. September will be very interesting. There is no way they can seriously be planning on Obama or McCain being president. I've never seen worse canidates. It's obviously a joke of some kind. They even got Paris Hilton involved. Very strange days indeed.

[sparks]

Scott, I not sure that the 'whole damn navy' is there, but something is occurring again. Two carriers and their support groups, etc. In addition to the two carriers there now.

What I find some what interesting is the number of guided missile cruisers and their support groups.

Last report I read there were over twelve of these ships headed to the area. If they are all Aegis class, that s one hell of a lot of fire power.

Very large chess pieces.

http://europebusines.blogspot.com/2008/08/massive-us-naval-armada-heads-for-iran.html

The last two paragraphs are also something to think about.

[Sassy]

Whew, insane 

[apaknad]

well, that made for some light reading.

[desdawg]

Is that called posturing? Intimidation. Does George want to leave office with a bang?

[Sassy]

And yet another article to ponder...

Obama and McCain: Pawns of the Global Elite?     

By Patrick Wood, Editor

Will it matter if Obama or McCain are elected in November? Hardly.

Both are rigidly backed by important members of the Trilateral Commission who hijacked the Executive Branch of the U.S. government starting in 1976 with the election of Jimmy Carter.

In Obama's case, Zbigniew Brzezinski (co-founder of the Commission in 1973) is emerging as his principal advisor on foreign policy. Ex-Fed Chairman Paul Volker has made a once-in-a-lifetime, glowing endorsement of Obama. Madelyn Albright is seen sitting next to Obama in several conferences. Shoot, even Jimmy Carter himself endorses Obama. All are top members of the Commission.

John McCain is being supported by several Trilateral Commission giants including: Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, Lawrence Eagleburger and Alexander Haig. All of these are ex-Secretaries of State who issued a joint endorsement of McCain early-on in his campaign.

And, unless Obama shoots both of his own feet (or...?) before the general presidential election in November, he is most likely to be the next president of the United States.

You would think that Americans would want to know who the "special interests" are that are embodied by this Trilateral Commission, and what they intend to do or not do with America.

What is the Trilateral Commission?

The Trilateral Commission was founded by the persistent maneuvering of David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1973. Rockefeller was chairman of the ultra-powerful Chase Manhattan Bank, a director of many major multinational corporations and "endowment funds" and had long been a central figure in the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Brzezinski, a brilliant prognosticator of one-world idealism, was a professor at Columbia University and the author of several books that have served as "policy guidelines" for the Trilateral Commission.

Brzezinski served as the Commission's first executive director from its inception in 1973 until late 1976 when he was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

The initial Commission membership was approximately three hundred, with roughly one hundred each from Europe, Japan and North America. Membership was also roughly divided between academics, politicians and corporate magnates; these included international bankers, leaders of prominent labor unions and corporate directors of media giants.

The word commission was puzzling since it is usually associated with instrumentalities set up by governments. It seemed out of place with a so-called private group unless we could determine that it really was an arm of a government - an unseen government, different from the visible government in Washington. European and Japanese involvement indicated a world government rather than a national government. We hoped that the concept of a sub-rosa world government was just wishful thinking on the part of the Trilateral Commissioners. The facts, however, lined up quite pessimistically.

If the Council on Foreign Relations could be said to be a spawning ground for the concepts of one-world idealism, then the Trilateral Commission was the "task force" assembled to assault the beachheads. Already the Commission had placed its members in the top posts the U.S. had to offer. **go to link for the rest of the story

http://www.augustreview.com/news_commentary/u.s._elections/obama_and_mccain%3a_pawns_of_the_global_elite?_2008080597/

[desdawg]

I don't think Obama will make it. My record of being right isn't very good lately. Maybe I am just hearing what I want to hear. I can't afford for Obama to be President. I hope there enough others in the same situation maybe people who actually think. Sean Hannity has made it his mission in life to see that it doesn't happen. But he is just a loudmouth talk show host. When Carter was President we saw 16-18% interest mortgages. One of the Zionist goals is to do away with private property ownership. Is this all part of that? I have never really dug into that stuff. But one of my friends is citing it all of the time saying see, it is all part of the One World Order plan.

[ScottA]

Keep an eye on this Georgia - Russia war. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26080747/ This is the begining. Georgia has asked the US for military aid today.

Georgia President Mikhail Saakashvili said 150 Russian tanks, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles had entered South Ossetia from neighboring Russia.

"Russia is fighting a war with us in our own territory," Saakashvili told CNN, calling on Washington to help.


Why do we need so many ships in the persian gulf? http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1218104233164&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull Why are they now talking about invading Pakistan? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26091229/ This snowball is going to get away from them.

[glenn kangiser]

http://www.conspiracypenpal.com/rants/ww3.htm

For what it's worth.  Check it out.

[Mad Dog]

Interesting read Glenn.  I've been talking about Iran the last two years, and my friends laughed at me.  I believe this all being orchestrated, and has been for some time.

Here's another link, that touches on a lot of these subjects, as well as being prepared for what seems like the inevitable.

http://www.survivalistboards.com/

[glenn kangiser]

Thanks for the link --

Interesting that citizens guns were stolen from them by police after Katrina.  So much for the Constitution in this day and age.  Looks like an off premises cache is in order.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-taU9d26wT4&eurl=http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=15097

[ScottA]

Once martial law is declared you no longer have any rights. All laws are suspended. It is no different than if you where in a war zone.

[glenn kangiser]

Shrub is all prepared -- all he needs to do is create another disaster and he has all of his illegal signing orders in place to make himself dictator and send dissenters off to his prepaid Haliburton camps.

[ScottA]

Yep it is scary but I think it always has been to some degree. I think we have a right feel less free than we did 20 years ago. I've always belived you only have as many rights as you can enforce or have enforced. As Glenns fire episode proved to some degree. Those people in New Orleans who had their guns taken where under martial law at the time if I understand it correctly. Not much they can do or say in that situation. It's not fair or right but when the law is what the army says it is what can you do?

[glenn kangiser]

Lots more going on in NOLA than meets the eye also.

The NO mafia and gov. supposedly had plans for NOLA that didn't include lots of poor black people so they used the - possibly assisted disaster to disperse them into all parts of the United tates with no hope of ever being able to gather up enough to get back to their homes.

Lots of money to be made in foreclosures and redevelopment- buying land with unmade payments and in changing NO from the "Chocolate City" as Ray put it, to a Mocha City. 



http://www.blackcommentator.com/167/167_cover_fighting_no_theft.html

[Mad Dog]

What cracks me up, is the guy got re-elected mayor AFTER all this BS went down.  What's it like to be an automaton anyway?   

[glenn kangiser]

He is the mobs buddy - no problem.

[Sassy]

Excellent article from The Daily Reckoning

REALITY BITES AGAIN
by James Howard Kunstler

The U.S. had taken advantage of temporary confusion in Russia, during the ten-year-long post-Soviet-collapse interval, and set up a client government in Georgia, complete with military advisors, sales of weapons, and even the promise of club membership in the Western alliance known as NATO. These blandishments were all in the service of the Baku-to-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which was designed specifically to drain the oil region around the Caspian Basin with an outlet on the Mediterranean, avoiding unfriendly nations all along the way.

At the time this gambit was first set up, in the early 1990s, there was some notion (or wish, really) among the so-called western powers that the Caspian would provide an end-run around OPEC and the Arabs, as well as the Persians, and deliver all the oil that the US and Europe would ever need – a foolish wish and a dumb gambit, as things have turned out.

For one thing, the latterly explorations of this very old oil region – first opened to drilling in the 19th century – proved somewhat disappointing. U.S. officials had been touting it as like unto "another Saudi Arabia" but the oil actually produced from the new drilling areas of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and the other Stans turned out to be preponderantly heavy-and-sour crudes, in smaller quantities than previously dreamed-of, and harder to transport across the extremely challenging terrain to even get to the pipeline head in Baku.

Meanwhile, Russia got its house in order under the non-senile, non-alcoholic Vladimir Putin, and woke up along about 2007 to find itself the leading oil and natural gas producer in the world. Among the various consequences of this was Russia's reemergence as a new kind of world power – an energy resource power, with the energy destiny of Europe pretty much in its hands. Also, meanwhile, the USA had set up other client states in the ring of former Soviet republics along Russia's southern underbelly, complete with U.S. military bases, while fighting active engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, if this wasn't the dumbest, vainest move in modern geopolitical history!

It's one thing that U.S. foreign policy wonks imagined that Russia would remain in a coma forever, but the idea that we could encircle Russia strategically with defensible bases in landlocked mountainous countries halfway around the world...? You have to ask what were they smoking over at the Pentagon and the CIA and the NSC?

So, this asinine policy has now come to grief. Not only does Russia stand to gain control over the Baku-to-Ceyhan pipeline, but we now have every indication that they will bring the states on its southern flank back into an active sphere of influence, and there is really not a damn thing that the U.S. can pretend to do about it.

We could have spent the past ten years getting our own house in order – waking up to the obsolescence of our suburban life-style, scaling back on the Happy Motoring, reconnecting our cities with world-class passenger rail, creating wealth by producing things of value (instead of resorting to financial racketeering), protecting our borders, and taking the necessary measures to defend and update our own industries. Instead, we pissed our time and resources away. Nations do make tragic errors of the collective will. The cluelessness of George Bush is nothing less than a perfect metaphor for the failure of a whole generation. The Boomers will be identified as the generation that wrecked America.

con't in next posting

[Sassy]

So, as the vacation season winds down, this country greets a new reality. We miscalculated in Western and Central Asia. Russia still "owns" that part of the world. Are we going to extend our current land wars there into the even more distant and landlocked Stan-nations? At some point, as we face financial and military exhaustion, we have to ask ourselves if we can even successfully evacuate our personnel from the far-flung bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

This must be an equally sobering moment for Europe, and an additional reason for the recent plunge in the relative value of the Euro, for Europe is now at the mercy of Russia in terms of staying warm in the winter, running their kitchen stoves, and keeping the lights on. Russia also exerts substantial financial leverage over the U.S. in all the dollars and securitized U.S. debt paper it holds. In effect, Russia can shake the U.S. banking system at will now by threatening to dump its dollar holdings.

The American banking system may not need a shove from Russia to fall on its face. It's effectively dead now, just lurching around zombie-like from one loan "window" to the next pretending to "borrow" capital – while handing over shreds of its moldy clothing as "collateral" to the Federal Reserve. The entire US, beyond the banks, is becoming a land of the walking dead. Business is dying, home-ownership has become a death dance, whole regions are turning into wastelands of "for sale" signs, empty parking lots, vacant buildings, and dashed hopes. And all this beats a path directly to a failure of collective national imagination. We really don't know what's going on.

The fantasy that we can sustain our influence nine thousand miles away, when we can't even get our act together in Ohio is just a dark joke. One might state categorically that it would be a salubrious thing for America to knock off all its vaunted "dreaming" and just wake up.

Until next time,

James Howard Kunstler
for The Daily Reckoning

[Sassy]

And while the US citizen flounders we're giving the Mexican truckers $2.2 billion to help them buy new trucks!!!

SPECIAL REPORT: L.A., Long Beach OK grants for Mexican carriers

Friday, Aug. 15, 2008 – The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach boast of bringing in 40 percent of the nation's imported goods, and plans to cut emissions at each port have been highlighted in mainstream news programs and the cable TV show "America's Port."

A Land Line investigation into the ports' multibillion-dollar clean truck program, however, shows that the $2.2 billion program could pay for the replacement of trucks owned by Mexican trucking companies while it excludes U.S. trucks that run any miles outside of California.

The Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles each have adopted clean trucks programs that phase out all pre-2007 emissions level trucks by December 2012, and phase in requirements that all trucks be operated by licensed concessionaires approved by the port. The Port of Los Angeles adopted further restrictions that eventually require all drivers to be company employees.

On page five of the Clean Trucks Program application – which features logos of each port – the form asks applicants to check one of three types of operating authority numbers.

   1. MC for motor carrier
   2. FF for freight forwarder
   3. MX for Mexican companies with federal authority to operate beyond commercial zones

The MX stands for "carriers that are based in Mexico," said Art Wong, a spokesman for the Port of Long Beach.  con't at link

http://www.landlinemag.com/Special_Reports/2008/Aug08/081508_LA_LongBeach.htm