Can the United States rid itself of the parasitic whore?

A silent battle has been raging right under our noses, a fierce underground struggle pitting the U.S. against one of its closest allies. For all its newsworthiness, the media has barely noticed the story – except when it surfaces, briefly, like a giant fin jutting above the waves. The aggressor in this war is the state of Israel, with the U.S., its sponsor and protector, playing defense. This is the dark side of the "special relationship" – a battle of spy vs. spy.

Convicted spy Jonathan Pollard – now serving a life sentence – stole secrets so vital that an attempt by the Israelis to get him pardoned was blocked by a massive protest from the intelligence and defense communities. Bill Clinton wanted to trade Pollard for Israeli concessions in the ongoing "peace process," and he was only prevented from doing so by a threat of mass resignations by the top leadership of the intelligence community.

The reason for their intransigence: among the material Pollard had been asked by his Israeli handlers to steal was the U.S. attack plan against the Soviet Union. According to Seymour Hersh, then-CIA director Bill Casey claimed Tel Aviv handed over the information to Moscow in exchange for relaxation of travel restrictions on Soviet Jews, who were then allowed to emigrate to Israel.

The Pollard case is emblematic – but it was just the beginning of a years-long effort by U.S. counterintelligence to rid themselves of the Israeli incubus. Law enforcement was – and presumably still is – convinced Pollard was very far from alone, and that a highly placed "mole" had provided him with key information. In his quest to procure very specific information, Pollard knew precisely which documents to look for – knowledge he couldn’t access without help from someone very high in government circles.

In addition, the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted a phone conversation between an Israeli intelligence officer and his boss in Tel Aviv, during which they discussed how to get hold of a letter by then-secretary of state Warren Christopher to Yasser Arafat. The Washington spy suggested they use "Mega," but his boss demurred: "This is not something we use Mega for," he averred.

The search for Mega and his underlings continues to this day, as U.S. counterintelligence attempts to rip up what appears to be a vast Israeli spy operation by its very deep roots. That’s why they went after Ben Ami Kadish, who handed over U.S. secrets to Tel Aviv and shared a handler with Pollard, and why they indicted Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, two top officials of AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group. That’s why they were listening on the other end as Jane Harman promised an Israeli agent to intervene in the Rosen-Weissman case. And now a new front has been opened up in this subterranean war with the arrest of Stewart David Nozette, a top U.S. scientist who worked for the Pentagon, had access to the most closely guarded nuclear secrets, and was the lead scientist in the search for water on the moon.

Nozette’s case is interesting because of his impressive resume: he held top positions with the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and NASA, and he served on the White House National Space Council under George H.W. Bush. From 1989 until March 2006, he held "Q" clearance, which means he had access to "critical nuclear weapon design information" and vital information concerning 20 "special access programs" – secrets only a very few top government officials had knowledge of.

In other words, this wasn’t just some mid-level schmuck who wanted to sell out his country for cash: he was one of the big boys – the principal author of the Clementine biostatic radar experiment, which allowed U.S. scientists to discover water on the moon – a kind of J. Robert Oppenheimer figure, whose singular contributions to the U.S. space program and its military applications granted him security clearances available to a very select few.

The affidavit in support of the criminal complaint [.pdf] alleging espionage is terse, vague in parts, and brimming with implication. Taking their cues from the Department of Justice press release, most news reports state, "The complaint does not allege that the government of Israel or anyone acting on its behalf committed any offense under U.S. laws," leaving out the last three words in the DOJ’s sentence: "in this case."

In this particular case, it’s true, prosecutors are going after Nozette for violations that occurred while they were reeling him in, with a federal agent pretending to be a Mossad officer offering him money (not very much, by the way) in exchange for secrets. The real question, however, is what caused them to zero in on Nozette? A Washington Times piece cites Kenneth Piernick, a former senior FBI agent, who opined:

“He must have made some kind of attempt, which triggered the FBI’s interest in him. They cut in between him and whoever he was trying to work with and posed as an intelligence officer, agent, or courier to handle the issue, and then when he delivered what he intended to deliver to that person, his contact was likely an undercover FBI agent or [someone from] another U.S. intelligence service.”

Yet Nozette may have made more than a mere "attempt." The affidavit alleges that, from 1998 to 2008, he served as a consultant to "an aerospace company wholly owned by the government of Israel," during which time "approximately once a month representatives of the aerospace company proposed questions, or taskings, to Nozette." He answered these questions, and, in return, received regular payments totaling $250,000.

This indicates the Feds had been on to Nozette for quite some time, and with good cause. The affidavit also notes that, at the beginning of this year, he traveled to "a different foreign country" in possession of two computer "thumb" drives, which seemed to have mysteriously disappeared upon his return some three weeks later. What was on the drives – and who were the recipients?

In 2007, federal authorities raided the offices of Nozette’s nonprofit company, the Alliance for Competitive Technology (ACT), purportedly because ACT, having procured several lucrative government contracts, had defrauded the federal government by overcharging. The affidavit cites an anonymous colleague of Nozette who recalled the scientist said that if the U.S. government ever tried to put him in jail he would go to Israel or another foreign country and “tell them everything” he knows.

Perhaps the real reason for the raid, however, had to do with the FBI’s growing suspicion – if not certainty – he was funneling U.S. secrets to Tel Aviv. ACT is a curious creation, a "nonprofit" group that nevertheless generated over half a million dollars last year according to documents filed with the IRS, with over $150,000 in salary and benefits paid out to Nozette. But it wasn’t just about money. ACT’s mission statement reads like a spy’s dream come true:

"The Alliance for Competitive Technology … has been created to serve the national and public interest by conducting scientific research and educational activities aimed at expanding the utilization of National and Government Laboratory resources. The National Laboratories possess significant technology, technologists, and resources, of great potential value to growing U.S. industrial organizations, both small and large. Recent changes in national policy (the Stevenson-Wydler Act of 1986 and the NASA Technology Utilization Program) have sanctioned the pursuit of technology transfer from these organizations. However, the capabilities and resources present in National Laboratories are often difficult to access by small and medium sized organizations with limited resources. ACT will research the best mechanisms to facilitate this transfer through focused research on technology transfer mechanisms, and educational and instructive programs on technology transfer from National Laboratories. In addition, ACT will enable U.S. organizations to utilize the resources of National Laboratories through existing established mechanisms (e.g., the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Technology Affiliates Program).Transfer of commercially valuable technology is significantly enhanced by such direct support of private sector efforts."

In short: ACT is all about technology transfer – from the U.S. to Israel. This, as is well-known, is one of the favored activities of the Israeli intelligence services, which regularly pilfer the latest American technology (especially military applications) to such an extent that a General Accounting Office investigation once characterized the effort as "the most aggressive espionage operations against the U.S. of any U.S. ally."

ACT had contracts with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in Arlington, Va., and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. It is hardly a leap of faith to conclude that vital data flowing from these projects was fed directly into the waiting maw of the Mossad.

Nozette was a key figure in developing and promoting the "Star Wars" ballistic missile defense system. His colleague in the "High Frontier" movement – and the official director of ACT – is one Klaus Heiss, like Nozette an enthusiast [.pdf] of space colonization (who also has some strong views on other subjects).

Contacted by an FBI agent masquerading as an Israeli intelligence agent, Nozette didn’t blink when told his lunch companion was from the Mossad: "Good," he said. "Happy to be of assistance." This was well before the issue of money was raised. Later in the conversation, Nozette boasted of his top-level security clearances and the range and depth of his knowledge of U.S. secrets, adding, "I don’t get recruited by the Mossad every day. By the way, I knew this day would come." Questioned further by the undercover agent, Nozette said, "I thought I was working for you already. I mean, that’s what I always thought [the foreign company] was – just a front."

Which it no doubt was.

Nozette agreed to be a regular "asset," yet he clearly felt his position was increasingly precarious. He inquired about the right of return and raised the possibility that he might go to Israel. He wanted a passport as part of his payment, in addition to the few thousand dollars the FBI was putting in a post office "dead drop" for him on receipt of stolen secrets.

Well, then, so what? Don’t all nations, even allies, spy on each other? What’s the significance of this particular case?

On the surface, our relationship with Israel is encompassed by the terms of the "special relationship," which has so far consisted of the U.S. giving unconditional support to Tel Aviv’s every action, no matter how brutal [.pdf] or contrary to our interests – and tolerating, to a large degree, its extensive covert operations on U.S. soil (or, at least, keeping quiet about them). On a deeper level, however, the tensions in this one-way love affair have frayed the specialness of the relationship almost to the breaking point.

This is not just due to the election of Barack Obama, who is widely perceived in Israel as being biased against the Jewish state. These tensions arose during Bush’s second term, when U.S. policy began to perceptibly tilt away from Tel Aviv. A particularly telling blow to U.S.-Israeli relations was the decision by the U.S. to clamp down on visa requirements for Israelis entering the U.S.: potential visitors from Israel are now required to undergo an interview, restrictions on their length of stay have been extended, and admission to the U.S. is no longer assured.

In the secret world of spooks spying on one another, the U.S.-Israeli relationship is increasingly adversarial, while in the diplomatic-political realm, it has nearly reached the point of open hostilities. This is thanks to the objective conditions that determine relations among nations: in the post-Cold War world, Israel necessarily became much less of an asset to the U.S. In the post-9/11 world, as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have so trenchantly pointed out, it is an outright liability.

Our self-sacrificial policy of unconditional support for Israel has earned us implacable enemies in the Arab world and granted our adversaries a priceless propaganda prize – and the growing awareness of this disability is something the Israelis no doubt find disturbing. The distortion of our foreign policy by the power of the Israel lobby is also being widely noted, and this is their real Achilles heel.

In this case, too, the Lobby will no doubt rush to exert their influence to downgrade Nozette’s crime and even depict him as an innocent victim of entrapment. Defenders of the AIPAC duo conjured a vast "anti-Semitic" conspiracy within the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI to explain the alleged persecution of Rosen and Weissman, and the same tactics are bound to be trotted out in this instance.

That is nonsense. The FBI didn’t just pick Nozette arbitrarily and conjure his crimes out of thin air. Their target was already deeply involved with the Israelis, and this is what brought him to their attention in the first place.

The nature and extent of Israeli spying in the U.S. is not a subject you’ll see the "mainstream" media very often touch with so much as a 10-foot pole, but when it does the results can be ominously disturbing. I, for one, haven’t forgotten Carl Cameron’s four-part series on Israeli spying in the U.S., broadcast by Fox News in December 2001. According to Cameron, his sources in law enforcement told him the Israelis had been following the 9/11 hijackers and had foreknowledge of their plans but somehow neglected to tell us. And then there were those dancing Israelis, leaping for joy at the sight of the Twin Towers burning…

This is the dark side of the "special relationship," so dark that hardly anyone wants to acknowledge it, let alone consider its implications.

Source: AntiWar.com

The White House Takes A Chokehold On The Media

Even as the White House preaches tolerance toward Muslims and Sikhs, it is practicing intolerance, signaling that anyone who challenges the leaders of an embattled America is cynical, political and -- isn't this the subtext? -- unpatriotic... We should dread a climate where the jobs of columnists and comedians are endangered by dissent.

Maureen Dowd, New York Times, September 30, 2001

That was 2001, the Republicans were in the White House and liberals were busy lecturing us on the dangers of a climate where dissent is considered unpatriotic. Now it's 2009 and the liberals hold Congress and the White House and are busy creating a climate where dissent is un-American and the subtext is... criminal.

Where the worst that people like Maureen Dowd or Jacob Weisberg could dig up as examples of the Bush Administration creating a climate of intimidation was an offhand comment about Bill Maher praising the courage of the 9/11 terrorists or putting a positive spin on news from Iraq-- those days are now long behind us. If post 9/11, a few columnists faced public outrage for their comments, today the Obama Administration openly orchestrates political attacks against its media critics.

Whether it's FOX News or Rush Limbaugh or CNBC-- the Obama Administration has openly and shamelessly targeted dissenting media figures. And even told the press how they were going to do it. And naturally the same defenders of the press who furrowed their brows when Ari Fleischer suggested that maybe an obnoxious comedian should think twice before calling the 9/11 terrorists courageous and the US Air Force cowardly... are cheering the media crackdown on.

Obama's top people did their tour of the Sunday Morning talk shows to spread the message to a cooperative state run media that FOX News was to be sidelined. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said, "it's important not to have the CNN's and the others of the world being led and following Fox, as if what they're trying to do is a legitimate news organization."

Had the Bush Administration gotten into the business of deciding that cable news networks with a liberal bias are not legitimate news organizations, the furor would have been endless. And the same columnists repeating the Obama Administration's talking points today, would have been the first to point out that this would mean that the government now gets to decide what a legitimate news network is or isn't, based on its level of favoritism to the White House.

Back in 2005, when the Bush Administration was merely paying less attention to the press and focusing on getting its message out through PR firms, Eric Boehlert at Salon hysterically claimed that this was part of a giant plot by the Bush Administration to destroy the press altogether. Boehlert wrote, "The Bush administration has been at war with the media from Day One. Is its real goal to undermine the press itself -- and thereby eliminate inconvenient truths?..." Boehlert then went on to give a description of the Bush Administration that could all too easily apply to the Obama Administration, "the Bush administration's well-documented mastery of cold-blooded political hardball, its record of contempt for journalism, its cavalier willingness to cross ethical lines in dealing with the press, and its arrogant assertion that it alone creates and controls reality".

But Boehlert's accusations would be far better directed toward the Obama Administration, whose White House Communications Director Anita Dunn gloated publicly;

"Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control... Whether it was a David Plouffe video or an Obama speech, a huge part of our press strategy was focused on making the media cover what Obama was actually saying as opposed to why the campaign was saying it. One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters. ... We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it."

There could hardly be a better textbook case of contempt for journalism and arrogance in believing that it and it alone controls reality.

At no time did the Bush Administration create an Operation Matthews to target Chris Matthews. Or go on talk shows to announce that the White House no longer considers CNN a news outlet. Mostly the Bush White House dealt with the media's liberal bias by trying to talk around them. By contrast the Obama Administration is not satisfied with having the allegiance of the majority of the press, but actually conducts wars against that fraction of the media that it does not yet control.

Naturally Boehlert sees no attempt by the Obama White House to create its own reality by trying to intimidate and directly attack media outlets that broadcast reports critical of its policies. These days he works at Media Matters pushing the Obama Administration's segregation of dissenting media outlets line, specifically FOX News. The thinking apparently is that the first step is to prevent any other media outlets from repeating any stories that FOX News breaks. After all nothing can be allowed to interfere with the White House's media echo chamber in which reporters repeat White House talking points to the public and back to the White House again.

That is not journalism. It is very literally propaganda. And calling on the media to segregate dissenting reporters and channels from the propaganda stream is an attempt by a faltering administration to create its own reality in defiance of the actual reality outside. The Obama Administration has tried to create its own economic reality, its own military reality, its own diplomatic reality and above all else, its own spin reality. And to do that, to make sure that the public hears nothing but the White House talking points day in and day out, you need control of the press.

Lenin's technique for seizing power in a city was to first grab the telegraph office in order to be able to control communications, then the electricity to control power, the railway stations to control transportation, the police stations to control enforcement, and ration cards to control food distribution. The first step though was to control communications. And when Anita Dunn, who considers Mao her favorite political philosopher, boasts about the Obama campaign's ability to control the media and feed unfiltered propaganda to he American public... the key word remains, "control".

And the stunning hypocrisy of the media, which repeatedly accused the Bush Administration of suggesting that its dissenters are unpatrotic or unamerican, in turning around now and calling FOX News "unamerican", as Jacob Weisberg does in a Newsweek column, demonstrates not only their bias, but their fundamental lack of standards of any kind. Boehlert and Weisberg and Dowd are not journalists, though they do get up to wave the ink stained flag and salute the masthead at every occasion. Rather they are propagandists willing to say anything to promote whatever the liberal agenda might be at the moment.

But the fallacy of both the White House and its adoring media fans is in believing that controlling the media also means controlling the American public. Health care nationalization isn't failing because of FOX news, it's failing because the public doesn't like what it sees. FOX news played its part, but the Obama administration's combination of deceit and incompetence sealed the deal. And while the rest of the media is content to explain the White House's talking points to America, FOX News is actually asking the hard questions about the people in power.

If dissent is now unamerican and if repeating the White House's talking points has become the essence of true journalism, then the claims made about the White House during the Bush Administration have finally come true... one administration later.

Source:

To Hell With The Scum In Washington, Arpaio Has Laws To Enforce

SURPRISE, Ariz. — An Arizona sheriff known for cracking down on people who are in the country illegally launched a crime and immigration sweep in northwestern metro Phoenix on Friday, a half day after officials in Washington limited his powers to make federal immigration arrests.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose sweeps have led to allegations of racial profiling, said the rebuff from Washington won't stop him. He said he can still arrest immigrants under a state smuggling law and a federal law that gives all local police agencies more limited power to detain suspected illegal immigrants.

"It doesn't bother me, because we are going to do the same thing," said Arpaio, whose deputies had arrested 16 people by Friday evening on unspecified charges. "I am the elected sheriff. I don't take orders from the federal government."

The officers were participating in a federal program that grants a limited number of local police departments special powers to make immigration arrests and speed up deportation. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stripped Arpaio of his power to let 100 deputies make federal immigration arrests, but renewed another agreement that allows 60 jails officers to determine the immigration status of people in jail.

The sheriff's sweeps in some heavily Latino areas of metro Phoenix have drawn criticism that Arpaio's deputies racially profile people. Arpaio said people pulled over in the sweeps were approached because deputies had probable cause to believe they had committed crimes and that it was only afterward that deputies found many of them were illegal immigrants.

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Arpaio's office over allegations of discrimination and unconstitutional searches and seizures.

"He is doing this to thumb his nose at the Obama administration," said Lydia Guzman, president of the Hispanic civil rights group Somos America.

The sweeps have discouraged some Hispanics who have witnessed or been victims of crime to refuse to call Arpaio's deputies, for fear of mistreatment, Guzman said.

Observers who are part of Guzman's group fanned out across the area of the sweeps with video cameras to record exchanges between deputies and motorists.

Arpaio said volunteers will use cameras owned by his agency to video-record deputies so viewers can see for themselves that they weren't doing anything wrong. Arpaio responded angrily to a question during a news conference about the costs of the cameras, saying they were paid through seizures in drug cases. "Dope peddlers bought the cameras," Arpaio said.

A dozen anti-Arpaio protesters yelled throughout the news conference. At one point, they chanted: "Order equals K-K-K — here's what Arpaio has to say."

Kris Kobach, a law professor at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and an advocate of expanding local immigration efforts, said Arpaio's office — like every other local police agency — can detain people suspected of immigration violations for a day or two until federal authorities come to pick them up.

In the past, Arpaio could have held such immigrants for longer than two days and conducted investigations of smuggling rings, Kobach said.

"It's really a slight narrowing, but it's not much," said Kobach, who worked as an immigration law adviser to then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft from 2001-2003.

Dan Pochoda, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing people who filed a lawsuit over the sweeps, said Arpaio still can't pull over motorists solely because they are suspected of being illegal immigrants.

"He can't do it under the terms he is claiming. He has indicated that he can stop people without the suspicion, based on what they look like, what they sound like," Pochoda said.

Arpaio said the Bush administration had no complaints about his use of the special federal powers, but all that has changed with the Obama administration.

"What's changed?" Arpaio asked. "Politics has changed, because they don't like us going on the streets to catch illegals."

This round of sweep, Arpaio's 12th, is set to end late Saturday.

Source: Google News

US scientist charged with attempted spying for Israel

A top American scientist who once worked for the Pentagon and the US space agency NASA was arrested Monday and charged with attempted spying for Israel, the Department of Justice said.

Stewart David Nozette, 52, developed an experiment that fueled the discovery of water on the south pole of the moon, and previously held special security clearance at the Department of Energy on atomic materials, the DOJ said.

He is charged with "attempted espionage for knowingly and willfully attempting to communicate, deliver, and transmit classified information relating to the national defense of the United States to an individual that Nozette believed to be an Israeli intelligence officer," the DOJ said.

Nozette had been dealing with an FBI undercover agent in a sting operation, the department said, adding there was no wrongdoing by Israel.

Nozette, who was arrested in the Washington suburb of Chevy Chase, Maryland and taken into custody, could make his first court appearance Tuesday on the charge, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

"The conduct alleged in this complaint is serious and should serve as a warning to anyone who would consider compromising our nation's secrets for profit," said David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security.

In addition to stints with NASA and the Department of Energy, Nozette worked at the White House on the National Space Council under then-president George H.W. Bush in 1989 and 1990.

"From 1989 through 2006, Nozette held security clearances as high as top secret and had regular, frequent access to classified information and documents related to the US national defense," the Justice Department said.

In early September, Nozette received a phone call from a person "purporting to be an Israeli intelligence officer, but who was in fact an undercover employee of the FBI," the DOJ said.

"Nozette met with the UCE (undercover employee) that day and discussed his willingness to work for Israeli intelligence," informing the agent that "he had, in the past, held top security clearances and had access to US satellite information."

The scientist offered to "answer questions about this information in exchange for money."

Over the next several weeks, Nozette and the undercover agent exchanged envelopes of money for answers to lists of questions about US satellite technology.

"In addition, Nozette allegedly offered to reveal additional classified information that directly concerned nuclear weaponry, military spacecraft or satellites, and other major weapons systems," DOJ said.

FBI agents retrieved a manila envelope left by Nozette in a designated location this month that "contained information classified as both top secret and secret that concerned US satellites, early warning systems, means of defense or retaliation against large-scale attack, communications intelligence information, and major elements of defense strategy."

Source: Blacklisted News

Traditional Americans are losing their nation

In the brief age of Obama, we have had "truthers," "birthers," tea party activists and town-hall dissenters.

Comes now, the "Oath Keepers." And who might they be?

Writes Alan Maimon in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Oath Keepers, depending on where one stands, are "either strident defenders of liberty or dangerous peddlers of paranoia."

Formed in March, they are ex-military and police who repledge themselves to defend the Constitution, even if it means disobeying orders. If the U.S. government ordered law enforcement agencies to violate Second Amendment rights by disarming the people, Oath Keepers will not obey.

"The whole point of Oath Keepers is to stop a dictatorship from ever happening here," says founding father Stewart Rhodes, an ex-Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer. "My focus is on the guys with the guns, because they can't do it without them.

"We say if the American people decide it's time for a revolution, we'll fight with you."

Prediction: Brother Rhodes is headed for cable stardom.

And if the Pelosi-Reid progressives went postal over town-hall protesters, calling them "un-American," "Nazis" and "evil-mongers," one can imagine what they will do with the Oath Keepers.

It's not too late to rescue the nation! Read how in "Save America Now! The New Revolution to Save Freedom and Liberty"

As with Jimmy Carter's long-range psychoanalysis of Joe Wilson, the reflexive reaction of the mainstream media will likely be that these are militia types, driven to irrationality because America has a black president.

Yet, the establishment's reaction seems more problematic for the republic than anything the Oath Keepers are up to. For our political and media elite seem to have lost touch with the nation and to be wedded to a vision of America divorced from reality.

Progressives are the folks who, in the 1960s, could easily understand that urban riots that took scores of lives and destroyed billions in property were an inevitable reaction to racism, poverty and despair. They could empathize with the rage of campus radicals who burned down the ROTC building and bombed the Pentagon.

The "dirty, immoral war in Vietnam" explains why the "finest generation we have ever produced" is behaving like this, they said. We must deal with the "root causes" of social disorder.

Yet, they cannot comprehend what would motivate Middle America to distrust its government, for it surely does, as Ron Brownstein reports in the National Journal:

"Whites are not only more anxious, but also more alienated. Big majorities of whites say the past year's turmoil has diminished their confidence in government, corporations and the financial industry. ... Asked which institution they trust most to make economic decisions in their interest, a plurality of whites older than 30 pick 'none' – a grim statement."

Is all this due to Obama's race?

Even Obama laughs at that. As he told David Letterman, I was already black by the time I was elected. And he not only got a higher share of the white vote than Kerry or Gore, a third of white voters, who said in August 2008 that race was an important consideration in voting, said they were going to vote for Obama.

With black voters going 24 to 1 for Obama, he almost surely won more votes than he lost because of his race.

Moreover, the alienation and radicalization of white America began long before Obama arrived. He acknowledged as much when he explained Middle Pennsylvanians to puzzled progressives in that closed-door meeting in San Francisco.

Referring to the white working-class voters in the industrial towns decimated by job losses, Obama said: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Yet, we had seen these folks before. They were Perotistas in 1992, opposed NAFTA in 1993 and blocked the Bush-Kennedy McCain amnesty in 2007.

In their lifetimes, they have seen their Christian faith purged from schools their taxes paid for, and mocked in movies and on TV. They have seen their factories shuttered in the thousands and their jobs outsourced in the millions to Mexico and China. They have seen trillions of tax dollars go for Great Society programs, but have seen no Great Society, only rising crime, illegitimacy, drug use and dropout rates.

They watch on cable TV as illegal aliens walk into their country, are rewarded with free educations and health care and take jobs at lower pay than American families can live on – then carry Mexican flags in American cities and demand U.S. citizenship.

They see Wall Street banks bailed out as they sweat their next paycheck, then read that bank profits are soaring, and the big bonuses for the brilliant bankers are back. Neither they nor their kids ever benefited from affirmative action, unlike Barack and Michelle Obama.

They see a government in Washington that cannot balance its books, win our wars or protect our borders. The government shovels out trillions to Fortune 500 corporations and banks to rescue the country from a crisis created by the government and Fortune 500 corporations and banks.

America was once their country. They sense they are losing it. And they are right.

Source: World Net Daily

Obama's Intrusions On Personal Liberty Aim To Make Bush's Look Tame

In the last weeks of the Bush-Cheney administration, FBI Director Robert Mueller and then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey rushed into law such unbounded expansions of the FBI's domestic surveillance powers that I was stunned. Years ago, I had often and critically reported on J. Edgar Hoover's ravenous invasions of Americans' personal privacy rights, including mine; but these new FBI guidelines, taking effect last Dec. 1, are unsparingly un-American.

As described by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an ever-watchful guardian of the Constitution, these Attorney General's Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations authorize the FBI — without going to a court — "to open investigative 'assessments' of any American without any factual predicate or suspicion. Such 'assessments' allow the use of intrusive techniques to surreptitiously collect information on people suspected of no wrongdoing and no connection with any foreign entity. These inquiries may include the collection of information from online sources and commercial databases."

The press has largely been uninterested in this suspension of the Bill of Rights — but we know a lot about David Letterman.

President Barack Obama has expressed no objections to these radical revisions of the Constitution, a founding document he used to educate students about at the University of Chicago. His attorney general, Eric Holder, said calmly during his Senate confirmation hearing: "The guidelines are necessary because the FBI is changing its mission ... from a pure investigating agency to one that deals with national security."

It was the same Eric Holder who said, while George W. Bush was president: "I never thought that I would see the day when a president would act in direct defiance of federal law by authorizing warrantless NSA (National Security Agency) surveillance of American citizens."

But then-Sen., and now President, Obama approves of the all-seeing NSA — in keeping with his lack of interest in reforming the perilous health of our founding values as they are being systematically infected by the FBI.

It was only on Sept. 29 that we citizen civilians were able to actually, though partially, look inside the 258-page "FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guidelines (DIOG)." For months, the Electronic Frontier Foundation had been trying, through the Freedom of Information Act, to find out if we'll have any privacy left. At last, the lurking report came heavily censored.

According to the Associated Press (Oct. 1), Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney David Sobel is "more concerned with what the FBI removed from its guidelines for public consumption than what it disclosed." He added that this heavily "edited version blacked out descriptions of how the FBI pursues investigative 'assessments' of Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing — and how it uses informants in political, civil and religious organizations …"

I ask again: Is this America?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is going back to court to get the Obama administration to remember why we — and they — are Americans …

On "Inside the FBI" (www.fbi.gov/inside/archive/inside011609.htm) on Jan. 16, the FBI's leading attorney, General Counsel Valerie Caproni, talks about surveilling college students interning at technology businesses for links to terrorists. "Are they a bunch of English majors and music majors? If so, they're probably not stealing high technology. On the other hand, if they're engineering or computer science people, then you might be more interested in them."

It's "enough to open an investigation," she continued. For example, "if someone comes in (to the FBI) and says 'Charlie seems to be acting really hinky, and he's staying in labs after hours and I saw him taking papers home.'"

This "hinky" student, Charlie, could be a grind, obsessively trying to get to the top of his class. But according to the FBI's Caproni, why not see what his contacts are? What sites does he visit a lot on the Web?

Source: HTRNews

Exposing the charlatans at the Southern Poverty Law Center

The term "social engineering" never fit an entity better than it does the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). This intrusive, tenacious organization has spent years attempting to recast and transform American society to fit its own peculiar ideals. Its directors are missionaries in the full sense of the word, in that they relentlessly work to stamp onto the hearts and minds of the public a distinctive belief system, which teaches what is evil and what is not.

This month, the Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR) has published an excellent analysis of the SPLC's attack on FAIR and other immigration reform groups, entitled, Guide to Understanding the Tactics of the Southern Poverty Law Center in the Immigration Debate." It offers much-needed insights. Besides giving the ordinary citizen an opportunity to view the insides of this "watchdog" group, the report should become a reference guide for members of the media, who generally take the easy way out when covering stories about race and/or immigration.

Reporters, editorialists, and feature writers are notorious for accepting, without further investigation, reams of data and materials disseminated to them by a cluster of self-appointed overseers of American society, among the most prominent, the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the NAACP, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. [See also here and here.]

Thanks to the fawning acceptance granted them by the establishment media, these groups, and several more like them, have acquired an almost quasi-governmental status in the public mind. When they spread lies, there are few people who will risk inevitable public denigration and stand up to challenge them. In regard to the SPLC, FAIR's new report does just that.

FAIR was founded in 1979, and is the country’s largest immigration reform group. It has more than 250,000 members whose aims are to improve border security, stop illegal immigration, and promote immigration levels consistent with the national interest. Sensible immigration reform would enhance national security, improve the economy, preserve our environment, and protect jobs for American citizens.

Such goals have earned FAIR the designation of a "hate" group by the SPLC. Other immigration reform organizations also have incurred the wrath of the SPLC. They include, but are not limited to the two next largest groups, i.e., the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and Numbers USA. These groups are reputable organizations that handle in a respectful manner what has become a volatile subject. Yet, the SPLC makes it clear that any individual or group that emphasizes the need for immigration reform of any kind is a "hater" and, hence, an enemy of American society.

Although the SPLC claims to take no position on immigration policy, for more than a decade it has acted as a bully by attacking citizens who even suggest that our borders should be monitored, or that the immigration population should be limited. According to the FAIR guide, "In countless articles and 'investigative reports,' the SPLC concluded that just about everyone actively opposed to amnesty and mass immigration was a 'nativist' a 'white supremacist,' or had ties to such groups and individuals."

The SPLC is well known for its ever-growing list of "hate groups" and individual "haters," often referred to as the SPLC's "hit list." Lacking an objective criteria for what constitutes "hate," the SPLC uses its own inscrutable standards. There are some hints, however, that point to a consistency in its multicultural emphasis. Not satisfied with customary, voluntary activity between races, its directors give the impression that they would like to engineer more aggressive policies, in order to bring about greater racial interaction.

In the SPLC's universe, race and how one deals with it, is an important component in determining who is good and who is bad. In order to put the full kibosh on perceived enemies, the SPLC will slap the "racist" tag on them, just for good measure. This was never clearer than in the case of the Mormon polygamous sect in Eldorado, Texas, where, last year, over 400 children were temporarily kidnapped by the government and removed from their parents. With all the troubles faced by these people in just trying to navigate around the intrusions by outsiders, while coping with a system they did not understand, the SPLC came along and declared the group "racist."

In trying to figure out the SPLC's bizarre intervention in this case, one might wonder if the charge of racism was based on the early history of the Mormon church (the sect still adheres to the church's early beliefs on race) or, given the SPLC's propensity for racial meddling, was the charge based on the fact that the men in this sect apparently had no colored wives? Might the lack of any bi-racial children disturb these diversity-minded social engineers?

SPLC leaders are relentless in their venomous attacks on those who they claim try to "retreat from the government and press." On the SPLC "hate" list, there are dozens of little religious groups that do not subscribe to establishment religion. Some believe in their group's special "chosenness" by the Deity. They each wish to have the freedom to worship in accord with their beliefs. You know, exercising the kind of freedom that Americans possessed in an earlier time – even to living separately, if they so determined – before it became mandatory to stay in view of the government and the press.

Groups like the ADL and SPLC, however, refuse to leave such gatherings alone. Instead, these religious sects (some with only a handful of members) are added to "hate" lists and brought to the attention of the public. Members of such faiths are suspect, not for their peculiar doctrines, but because, according to the "watchdogs," no citizens should be allowed to operate on the outside or fringe of what is considered "mainstream" society. Outsiders who prefer to behave in such a manner are clearly not engaging in "inclusive" practices and, hence, could very well be haters of members of other groups and, therefore, "dangerous."

This is the heart of the SPLC philosophy that it conveys in its massive, annual fundraising mailings to thousands of subscribers, in which fearful scenarios are painted of a society ridden with racists, xenophobes, and potential domestic terrorists.

This month, black Professor Carol Swain of Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, made the Southern Poverty Law Center's hit list. Deemed an "apologist for white supremacists" by SPLC's Mark Potok, Swain earned this ad hominem attack because she had dared to offer a favorable review of the documentary film, A Conversation About Race. [See my review here.]

The film, produced by Craig Bodeker, is focused on interviews with a diverse group of people of various ages and ethnic backgrounds. They each get to offer their opinions on the racism that they supposedly observe in the world around them. It is Bodeker's suspicion that genuine racism in today's America is a "myth." Many of the responses offered by the interviewees in this film inadvertently appear to confirm this suspicion. In spite of the SPLC's attempt to shame her, Professor Swain stands by her assertion that Bodeker's film would be useful in classrooms to stimulate honest discussions on the subject of race.

Those who are familiar with the history of the SPLC know that this organization does not seek honesty. Like its other counterparts, it is determined to remain entrenched in its self-appointed role as caretaker and guardian of Americans' thoughts and social habits. Professor Swain is yet another target to have encountered the SPLC's tactic of character assassination. In the coming days we will learn to what extent it will follow through with its usual "link and smear" maneuvers and poisonous press releases. (Of course, as a vocal critic of open borders immigration policies, Swain could never win the approval of the SPLC.)

The FAIR guide cites several investigative articles that have been done on the SPLC. They include critical pieces in The Nation magazine, Harper's magazine, and the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser newspaper. Each describes how the SPLC skews, exaggerates and manipulates data to fit its biased perspectives on race, along with information about its questionable fundraising tactics.

As the FAIR guide suggests, an honest analysis of the immigration issue is possible if, after receiving press releases and other data from SPLC directors, journalists would feel obligated to test the accuracy of their information, question their motives, seek out responses to their allegations about other citizens and, most primary, distinguish between advocacy and news reporting.

Source: Issues and Views

Criminals shouldn’t be allowed to investigate themselves

In its rabid efforts to whitewash the Goldstone report, Israel is likely to carry out another disingenuous probe into its genocidal onslaught against the Gaza Strip nearly ten months ago. The report, compiled by South African judge Richard Goldstone, himself a Jew, accused Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians. As many as 1400 Palestinians, mostly non-combatants including more than 330 children, were killed during the 22-day campaign which some historians and intellectuals compared to the allied saturation bombing of the German city of Dresden at the close of the Second World War. Israel has already conducted a number of “investigations” into the Gaza blitzkrieg which exonerated the Israeli army of any wrongdoing. However, nearly everyone familiar with patterns of Israeli behavior realizes that investigations by Israel into crimes committed by Israel didn’t have an iota of credibility. In the final analysis, criminals, especially war criminals, are unlikely to indict themselves by admitting guilt. Hence, it is a foregone conclusion that any new probe by Israel of its pornographic crimes in Gaza would be a repetition of past investigations. Moreover, an inquiry by the Israeli army, or the Israeli justice system, into the Gaza crimes would be very much like a probe by the Gestapo into crimes perpetrated by the Wehrmacht or SS forces. The analogy is justified to a great extent. After all, the entire Israeli political and military class consists of nefarious war criminals and Nazi-like racists who advocate genocide and mass murder. In fact, it is very difficult for any Israeli Jew to reach a high position in either the military or political hierarchies if he doesn’t have his hands fully stained with Palestinian blood. This explains the morbid infatuation of the bulk of the Israeli Jewish public with Israeli war criminals. The more these war criminals excel in blood-letting, the more respect and admiration they receive from society. For example, Israel elected Ariel Sharon, the certified war criminal twice as Prime Minster. The “hero” of many genocidal massacres, such as the 1982- Sabra and Shatilla carnage, was often given the esteemed epithet of “Melich Yisrael” or “King of Israel.” In 1998, Ehud Barak, the current Israeli defense minister who oversaw the genocidal campaign against the Gaza Strip, sought during his election campaign to impress voters by giving a graphic description of how he assassinated three Palestinian leaders in Beirut several years earlier. In short, we are talking about a breed of war criminals and murderous thugs who really differ very little from Nazi leaders and commanders. After all, both practiced the “no-holds-barred doctrine.” The Nazis implemented that doctrine in Europe, and the Zionists in Palestine and Lebanon . Apart from that, there is an entire history of Zionist whitewashing of Israeli crimes which shows that Israel itself is a huge crime against humanity. When the massacre of Dir Yasin was carried out, an initial Israeli police report claimed that “an Arab was injured.” Similarly, an Israeli probe into the Kfar Qassem massacre in the mid 1950s blamed the victims for “violating the curfew.” This pattern of blaming the victims continues to this day. A few weeks ago, an Israeli court acquitted Jewish terrorist settlers who ganged up on elderly Palestinian peasants and shepherds in the southern Hebron hills, beating them savagely, using clubs and other objects. The perpetrators, who had been caught on camera attacking the helpless Palestinians, were exonerated of any wrong doing. Well, perhaps the Jewish judge is insisting that all Palestinians ought to have special cameras that see through the masks worn by Jewish settlers when attacking their Palestinian victims. There is no doubt that Israel has been embarrassed by the Goldstone report. This explains the perplexity of Israeli leaders’ and spokespersons’ behavior. This week, Israeli Prime Minister made two remarks which underscored this pattern of psychotic behavior. First, he demanded that the world stop relying on and buying oil from Muslim countries, saying that western dependence on oil was encouraging “terror.” Well, one would have to be a psychiatrist to analyze the mental sickness of a leader who can’t bring himself to see reality as it is. Second, Netanyahu reportedly has authorized an inter-ministerial committee to press the international community to amend the laws of war, conceivably in order to allow the Israeli army to commit genocide with impunity. One Israeli writer argued that “if the Americans and Russians and Chinese can commit war crimes with impunity, why can’t Israel do the same.” In other words, what Israeli leaders are effectively saying is that the peoples of the world ought to recognize “Jewish Nazism” as a legitimate fact of life. What else would explain the offensive demands of amending the laws of war to suit Israel’s criminal behavior? This means that it is only a matter of time before another Israeli official, a minister, or army general, or even a Prime Minister, will argue that since Nazi Germany carried out a holocaust against Jews, Jews are perfectly justified in carrying out a holocaust against the Palestinians.! In another related feat reflecting Israeli frustration over the Goldstone report, the Israeli government is now studying the possibility of suing Hamas for “terror and war crimes” against Israel. Well, it seems that the depravity and brutal ugliness of Zionist leaders have no limits. True, Hamas, like any other national liberation movement, is not faultless. However, whatever Hamas and other Palestinian factions have done in the context of their legitimate resistance against the Nazi-like Israeli occupation ought to be considered in the context of decades of harsh repression meted out by Israel to the Palestinian people. After all, Israel stole Palestine from its rightful owners, demolished their homes, destroyed their farms, murdered untold thousands of civilians in numerous grisly massacres, and expelled the bulk of the Palestinians from their ancestral homeland to the four corners of the world. I know that Israeli criminality against the Palestinian people don’t always justify certain acts of violence and terror by the victims. However, there is no doubt that terror, repression and oppression, which transcends reality, always makes violence inevitable. In brief, those to whom evil is done do evil in return. Hence, it is morally axiomatic that violence carried out by people defending themselves, their country and their honor and dignity against an overwhelming onslaught by foreign invaders shouldn’t be equated with the violence and terror of their tormentors and gravediggers. Indeed, if a foreign colonialist occupation is an act of rape, and it undoubtedly is, then a rape victim’s resistance, even if it involves violence, shouldn’t be placed on the same moral footing with the violence and aggression of the attacker. Otherwise, every person defending himself against oppression and assault ought to be criminalized. True, one is always sorry for the death of innocent people, irrespective of their race and faith. However, Israel must bear full responsibility for forcing the Palestinians to choose between national demise and violent struggle for freedom and justice. Source: Desert Peace

From bully state to Stasi state

Thanks to everyone who came to the London leg of The Bully State book launch. Last night's drinks party at the Westminster Arms near Parliament Square was attended by a wide range of politicos from a variety of groups including the Adam Smith Institute, the Taxpayers Alliance (and its sister campaign Big Brother Watch), Liberal Vision, The Freedom Association and several more.

Guests also included a number of bloggers – among them Guido Fawkes and Dick Puddlecote – plus one or two corporate visitors, including a consultant to the oil industry aka Big Bad Oil.

Last night's event was noticeably more political than our party in Edinburgh which felt more like a gathering of friends and family (which, in some cases, it was). Within the Westminster village I detect a far stronger desire to fight back against the nanny/bully/Stasi state. In Scotland, one or two individuals aside, there seems to be a general acceptance that nothing can be done about it and we just have to lump it.

BTW, I was driven to refer to a Stasi state by Duncan Bannatyne's article in last Sunday's Observer which I have already commented upon HERE. This passage in particular stood out:

Smoking should be banned in cars, and particularly any vehicle with children in it. On a school visit I met a 12-year-boy who wanted to be an athlete who told me that every morning his mother lit up when she was driving to school, even though he'd begged her to stop. He should be able to report her to the police.

It should also be illegal to smoke at home in front of children. I accept that enforcing such a law would be difficult, but it would send a message that such behaviour is unacceptable.

Last night I pointed out that the only way this could be enforced is for neighbours or family members to report people who smoke in front of children to the police. It makes you wonder what sort of society Bannatyne wants to create. Smoke-free, undoubtedly, but the means of achieving that are so terrible to contemplate that it beggars belief that anyone in public life would promote such policies.

Actually, I think Bannatyne has done us a favour and scored a huge own goal. As president of No Smoking Day he has demonstrated the lengths to which the anti-tobacco will go to achieve a "smoke-free" (sic) world.

Roll on No Smoking Day 2010. Thanks to Bannatyne's appalling comments he has given us all the ammunition we need.

PS. The Bully State: The End of Tolerance can be ordered on Amazon HERE.

Source: Taking Liberties