Do you suffer from BCS (Battered Citizen Syndrome) ? Are you’re a concerned citizen, deeply worried about where America is headed politically, disgusted by the media-ignored threats,fed up with the relentless attacks on our freedoms and beliefs, and concerned about the taxing effects on our way of life due to an ever-burdening immigration influx — join the Voice of Reason at Freedom Fighter Radio today!

AMERICANS ARE AWAKENING and ARE FIGHTING BACK through the avenue of INFORMATION. We are in an information war, and WE THE PEOPLE, will ultimately be VICTORIOUS against the NEW WORLD ORDER AGENDA perpetrated by a small group of global elite!

After discovering that water pumps for colonoscopies were not properly cleaned, the VA said there is a slight risk of HIV or hepatitis infection.

BY ROBERT SAMUELS
MiamiHerald.com

Thousands of veterans who underwent certain routine medical procedures at Miami’s VA Medical Center are at risk of being infected with hepatitis or HIV, the hospital announced Monday.

The revelation drew intense criticism from South Florida congressmen and the concern of veterans who hope a visit to the government-run health center has not compromised their health.

At the center of the fears are water pumps that are regularly used during colonoscopies and gastrointestinal procedures, said John Vara, the Miami VA’s chief of staff. The hospital discovered March 4 that the pumps — which are attached to the tubes used in the procedures — were being rinsed but not disinfected. This, Vara said, creates the slight chance that back-flow from the pumps could lead to serious or potentially deadly infections.
(more…)

Source: The Sun

AMERICA has called out its new weapon to send into battle in Afghanistan - a terrifying pack of robotic “BigDogs”.

The state-of-the-art headless four-legged metal beasts have been designed to navigate the country’s treacherous terrain.

And - as it leaps towards the enemy on animal-inspired articulated legs - the BigDog also lets off an eerie lawnmower buzz.
Read More and see the video Click Here

In the not to distant America, a small group of men who served in the American military swore by the constitution to protect there country from every enemy foreign and domestic. seeing Americas Freedoms and Constitution destroyed by the patriot act and other legislation’s. They are pushed to the edge by the vicious swath of the Homeland Security acting under the patriot act and forces in what becomes the first day of a second American Revolution.

This is an undated photo released by the Oakland Police Department of 26-year-old Lovelle Mixon. Mixon was killed during a shoot out with police Saturday March 21, 2009 that left three officers dead and one gravely wounded. (AP Photo/Oakland Police Department)

By TERRY COLLINS and LISA

OAKLAND, Calif. — A man wanted for violating his parole killed three veteran police officers and gravely wounded another in two shootings Saturday, the first after a routine traffic stop and the second after a massive manhunt ended in gunfire, authorities said. The gunman was also killed.

“It’s in these moments that words are extraordinarily inadequate,” said Mayor Ron Dellums at a somber news conference announcing the slayings. It was the first time in the history of the Oakland Police Department that three officers were killed in the line of duty in the same day.

The violence began when two officers stopped a Buick sedan in east Oakland just after 1 p.m., Oakland police spokesman Jeff Thomason said. The driver opened fire, killing one officer and gravely wounding the another.

The gunman then fled on foot, police said, leading to an intense manhunt by dozens of Oakland police, California Highway Patrol officers and Alameda County sheriff deputies. Streets were roped off and an entire area of east Oakland closed to traffic.

Officers checking on an anonymous tip found the suspect barricaded inside an apartment building at around 3:30 p.m., police said.

Police said the gunman fired an assault rifle at officers who came into the building to arrest him. Two members of the SWAT team were killed and a third was grazed by a bullet, police said.

Acting Oakland police Chief Howard Jordan said police returned fire, killing a man they identified as 26-year-old Lovelle Mixon of Oakland.

The slain officers were identified as Sgt. Mark Dunakin, 40, who was killed at the first shooting. The officers killed at the second location were Sgt. Ervin Romans, 43, and Sgt. Daniel Sakai, 35. Officer John Hege, 41, was in grave condition.

Reached by telephone late Saturday, Hege’s father, Dr. John Hege said, “He had an injury to his brain … and it’s not clear he can survive. … It is a stunning thing to face, although we were always aware of the risks.”

Hege, a retired physician from neighboring Piedmont, said his son loved being an authority figure and worked well with people. He was an Eagle Scout. He played high school football and wrestled. He umpired and coached even as a youth, and joined the Oakland Police Department reserves.

After graduating from St, Mary’s College in Moraga, Calif., he taught high school physical education for a few years in nearby Hayward before joining the police department a decade ago.

He recently became a motorcyle traffic control officer, Dr. Hege said, adding, “He liked excitement.”

As for the slain shooting suspect, the father said, “The man was evidently terribly desperate. It is a sad story…”

Grieving officers at the police station hugged and consoled each other.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said it was a tragic day.

“All four officers dedicated their lives to public safety and selflessly worked to protect the people of Oakland,” he said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those lost, the Oakland Police Department and law enforcement officers throughout California during this difficult time.”

Police said Mixon wielded two different weapons. One gun was used at the first scene and an assault rifle was used at the apartment building where he was hiding.

“(Mixon) was on parole and he had a warrant out for his arrest for violating that parole. And he was on parole for assault with a deadly weapon,” said Oakland police Deputy Chief Jeffery Israel.

Police did not say why the officers had initially stopped the suspect, other than to call the stop routine.

People lingered at the scene of the first shooting. About 20 bystanders taunted police.

Tension between police and the community has risen steadily since the fatal shooting of unarmed 22-year-old Oscar Grant by a transit police officer at an Oakland train station on Jan. 1.

That former Bay Area Rapid Transit officer, Johannes Mehserle, has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Monday. Violent protests erupted on the streets of Oakland in the weeks after Grant’s death, further inflaming tensions.

Officer deaths are nothing new in Oakland. The memorial wall in the Oakland Police headquarters shows that at least 47 officers died before Saturday. The wall shows the last officer killed in Oakland was in January of 1999.

People left four bouquets of white roses under the granite wall inside the building lobby.

The governor’s office said Schwarzenegger would fly to Oakland on Sunday from Washington, D.C., to meet with police and Mayor Dellums to “get a firsthand account of what’s happening.” Both state Attorney General Jerry Brown and Dellums were at Saturday’s news conference.

A group of Oakland ministers went to the hospital to offer prayers and condolences to the family members of the injured officers and the dozens of Oakland police officers who gathered there.

They said that on Sunday morning they would urge their parishioners not to let the event tear the city apart.

Pastor Raymond Lankford, executive director of Healthy Oakland, urged people to show support for the officers and their families.

“What officers do, that’s a tough job,” Lankford said. “They need love, they need support. They need to know the community is behind them.”

___

Associated Press writer Tim Reiterman contributed to this report.

In 1993 a teenage girl ran away from home. some terrorist took her in. She witnessed alot. So why hasn’t anyone heard about her? Smuggling, illegal aliens, corrupt officials and terrorism all in on big bundle.

Source: Bob Unruh WorldNetDaily

A military commander at Fort Campbell in Kentucky demanded his soldiers give him the registration numbers of any guns they own privately and then reveal where they are stored.

The order was stopped, according to base officials, when it was discovered the commander was not “acting within his authority.”

The original order was issued on the letterhead of Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment and said effective March 11, any soldier with a “privately owned weapon” was required to submit the information, along with any information about any concealed carry permit the soldier may have, and what state issued the permit.

Further, the rule warned, “If any soldier comes into possession of a Privately Owned Weapon following the effective date of this memorandum, he is required to inform the Chain of Command of the above information.”

One soldier who objected to the demands circulated the memo, commenting that he lives off post.

“It just seems a little coincidental to me that within 90 days the most anti-firearm president in history is inaugurated, some of the nastiest anti-firearm laws are put on the table in Washington , and then the Army comes around wanting what amounts to a registration on all firearms, even if they are off post, and doesn’t provide any reason or purpose as to why,” the soldier said.

Base spokeswoman Cathy Gramling told WND the letter apparently was a mistake. She said the base requires anyone bringing a privately owned weapon onto the installation to register it.

(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com …

Source:U.S. English.org

Measure would require most written license exams to be taken in English

By a margin of 37-14, the Georgia Senate voted on Tuesday to require nearly all candidates for a driver’s license to take their written test in English. The vote on bill S. 67 sends the measure to the House for consideration.

Introduced by Sen. Jack Murphy, S. 67 would require examinations for all non-temporary driver’s licenses in Georgia to be conducted in English. In the interest of increasing road safety and English proficiency the measure would eliminate most use of translators and driver’s license exams in languages other than English. The bill contains exceptions for temporary licenses, as well as for the illiterate, who would be allowed to have the questions read to them.

“This bill is a winning effort for law enforcement officers, construction workers, and the motorists of Georgia,” said Mauro E. Mujica, Chairman of U.S. English, Inc. “State agencies should not be waving the checkered flag to permit those who don’t understand English to operate a motor-vehicle. Federal law does not permit non-English speakers to operate heavy machinery for a valid reason – it creates a danger to others. Georgia should require prospective drivers to take licensing examinations in English for the same reason.”

Georgia currently offers prospective drivers the opportunity to take their exam in 14 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Laotian, Polish and Spanish. According to the Georgia Department of Driver Services, roughly 5,000 people take driver’s license examinations in languages other than English every month.

Contact - Rob Toonkel (rtoonkel@usenglish.org or 202-833-0100)

U.S. English, Inc. is the nation’s oldest and largest non-partisan citizens’ action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States. Founded in 1983 by the late Sen. S.I. Hayakawa of California, U.S. English, Inc. (www.usenglish.org) now has more than 1.8 million members.

Source: Police Chief Magazine

Should the United States, or any por­tion of it, have to resort to large-scale quarantines to contain the spread of dis­ease, it seems certain that state and local police will be deeply involved in any such effort. The military is accomplished at lo­gistical undertakings and may be best suited for such things as the delivery of food, water, medical supplies and related items. Although the military and other federal entities such as FEMA will pre­sumably play a major part in any broad quarantine program, state and local law enforcement agencies will play a critical role as well, particularly in the early stages of the emergency while other resources are being mobilized and brought on line. This role will present a monumental challenge to state and local law enforcement agencies, for they will face daunting personnel and logistical problems as they strive to fulfill the duties and responsibilities placed upon them by federal, state, and local law.

Indeed, quarantines of any signifi­cance are outside the experience of law enforcement agencies in the United States. The last large scale quarantine in the United States was imposed almost 90 years ago during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Internationally, the SARS epidemic, or severe acute respiratory syn­drome, was confronted by quarantines in China, Hong Kong, and Singapore. There, “police surrounded and cordoned off buildings, set up checkpoints on roads into and out of areas where the disease had been discovered, installed Web cameras in people’s homes, blocked off whole villages, and even threatened to execute anyone who broke quarantine.”¹ The less draconian response in Canada, in which people were asked to voluntarily quarantine themselves in their homes while being supplied with essential supplies, was generally effective and would be more in line with any quar­antine that may be imposed in the United States. Nonetheless, President George Bush’s suggestion in early October 2005 that the military may be used to enforce a quarantine opens the door to speculation about the tactics and operational protocols that may be under consideration at the federal level.

Read More with links to Govt documents Click Here

.

Who says complaining does not pay off. (Refer back to last alert).

Please read the latest from the MSSA………

Dear MSSA Friends,

I just received a phone call from the office of U.S. Senator Tester of Montana to inform me that at 5:15 (EST) today a letter cosigned by Senator Tester (D-MT) and Senator Baucus (D-MT) was faxed to the Department of Defense asking DoD to reverse its new policy requiring destruction of fired military cartridge brass. At 5:30, I am told, Tester’s office received a fax back from DoD saying that the brass destruction policy IS reversed.

Others report to me that they are already seeing evidence of this on the Websites of entities that liquidate surplus DoD commodities.

Our thanks go out to Senator Tester and Senator Baucus, and their staff, for getting on this problem promptly and making the reversal happen

Staff for Tester and Baucus promise they will get me the documentation for this reversal tomorrow morning. I’ll forward that when I get it.

Best wishes,

Gary Marbut, president
Montana Shooting Sports Association
http://www.mtssa.org
author, Gun Laws of Montana
http://www.mtpublish.com

The Liberty Crew
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can give the gift of freedom, and it’s free. Email this link widely and make copies of “2A Today for the USA” to give away - go there right now. The message and information in this definitive film is possibly the only significant way you can do something active to protect your free right of gun ownership.

Use our latest 2A Today handbills - make copies and hand out to all your contacts.

JPFO currently has a Super Special Offer on ALL JPFO Merchandise, Donations, Memberships and Renewals, see details here … http://www.jpfo.org/alerts02/alert20081125.htm Get your free copy of the film DVD and make copies to pass around, as well as sending people to our download page.

Five Clay County officials, including the circuit court judge, the county clerk, and election officers were arrested Thursday after they were indicted on federal charges accusing them of using corrupt tactics to obtain political power and personal gain.

The 10-count indictment, unsealed Thursday, accused the defendants of a conspiracy from March 2002 until November 2006 that violated the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). RICO is a federal statute that prosecutors use to combat organized crime. The defendants were also indicted for extortion, mail fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to injure voters’ rights and conspiracy to commit voter fraud.

According to the indictment, these alleged criminal actions affected the outcome of federal, local, and state primary and general elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006. The indictment accused the defendants of the following criminal actions: Read more

Source: Brandweek

Wal-Mart is accelerating its efforts to better service Hispanic shoppers in the United States with plans to open new small-format “supermercado” stores, as well as a Latino-focused version of its Sam’s Club warehouse concept this year.

According to a report by the Financial Times, the world’s largest retailer will open its first Hispanic-focused supermarkets this summer in Phoenix and Houston within two remodeled 39,000-square-foot locations that previously housed Walmart Neighborhood Market stores.

Located in “strongly Hispanic neighborhoods,” the Supermercado de Walmart stores will feature a “new layout, signing and product assortment designed to make them even more relevant to local Hispanic customers,” said the retailer. The staff will be bilingual.

The new Más Club, a Hispanic version of Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club, will be 143,000 square feet and open in Houston this year.

Eduardo Castro-Wright, the head of Wal-Mart’s U.S. stores since 2005, has been an advocate of testing new smaller, more focused formats, and raised the idea of turning the Neighborhood Market into a Hispanic-style bodega concept several years ago, according to the Times.

He is also credited with developing Wal-Mart’s efforts to customize its larger Supercenter stores, which have been grouped according to differing community profiles, such as urban, suburban, Hispanic and African-American, with customized merchandise.

A 195,000-square-foot Supercenter that opened in Texas last year included a tortillería bakery, Hispanic foods and a larger selection of Spanish-language music and DVDs, according to the report.

Castro-Wright was previously head of Wal-Mart’s Mexican subsidiary, whose store network ranges from large U.S.-style Supercenters to small local bodegas, an upmarket supermarket chain and two restaurant chains.

Last year, Wal-Mart also began testing four new 10,000-square-foot Marketside convenience grocery stores in the Phoenix area — its first new format in a decade. Tesco, the U.K. retailer, also has more than 25 of its small Fresh & Easy markets in the Phoenix area.

Source:NIGEL DUARA, Associated Press Writer

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley suggested that AIG executives should take a Japanese approach toward accepting responsibility for the collapse of the insurance giant by resigning or killing themselves.

The Republican lawmaker’s harsh comments came during an interview with Cedar Rapids, Iowa, radio station WMT on Monday. They echo remarks he has made in the past about corporate executives and public apologies, but went further in suggesting suicide.

“I suggest, you know, obviously, maybe they ought to be removed,” Grassley said. “But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they’d follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.

“And in the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide before they make any apology.”

Grassley spokesman Casey Mills said the senator isn’t calling for AIG executives to kill themselves, but said those who accept tax dollars and spend them on travel and bonuses do so irresponsibly.

“Senator Grassley has said for some time now that generally speaking, executives who make a mess of their companies should apologize, as Japanese executives do,” Mills said. “He says the Japanese might even go so far as to commit suicide but he doesn’t want U.S. executives to do that.”

The senator’s remarks added to a chorus of public outrage over the disclosure that AIG intends to pay its executives $165 million in bonuses after taking billions in federal bailout money. President Barack Obama lambasted the insurance giant for “recklessness and greed” on Monday and pledged to try to block payment of the bonuses.

Source: Washington Post

The Federal Reserve said today that it will deploy an additional $1.2 trillion to try to lower interest rates and stimulate the economy, an aggressive move aimed at containing the recession.

The central bank will increase its purchases of mortgage-backed securities by $750 billion, on top of a previously announced $500 billion. It also will double its purchases of debt in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to $200 billion. Those steps are intended to lower mortgage rates. The announcement of the previous purchases pushed mortgage rates down a full percentage point.

The Fed also said it will buy $300 billion in long-term Treasury bonds, a step it had previously considered but had been reluctant to act on. That move will lower long-term interest rates for the U.S. government directly and, Fed officials hope, will indirectly lower borrowing costs for businesses and individuals.

Following today’s announcement, Treasury bond prices spiked and yields on those bonds declined, as traders anticipated the Fed bond purchases. At 2:30 p.m., 15 minutes after the announcement, the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds had fallen half a percentage point, to 2.53 percent.

The stock market also rose steeply, with the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index up 2.2 percent at 2:30 p.m.

Since the last meeting of the Fed’s policymaking arm, “job losses, declining equity and housing wealth, and tight credit conditions have weighed on consumer sentiment and spending,” the Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement. “Weaker sales prospects and difficulties in obtaining credit have led businesses to cut back on inventories and fixed investment.”

“In these circumstances, the Federal Reserve will employ all available tools to promote economic recovery and to preserve price stability,” the statement said.

Since cutting the interest rate it controls to essentially zero in December, the Fed has had to find other tools to try to combat a rapidly deepening recession. At its policymaking meeting that concluded today, the central bank left that rate at a range of zero to 0.25 percent.

The vote was unanimous, in contrast to the FOMC’s previous meeting, at which one official dissented.

The Fed essentially has unlimited ability to supply cash during a financial crisis by expanding its balance sheet at will, reflecting its power to create money.

.

Laser and beam weapons have been the stuff of science fiction lore for many years. Good science fiction, however, is based on some kind of science fact and, if done properly, will become less implausible over time. This now is occurring with lasers both when used in an improvised weaponry role and when produced as dedicated laser weapons.
Military entities have debated the implications of a shift to laser and other forms of directed energy weaponry for quite some time. In today’s world of terrorist plots and increasingly violent criminals, the law enforcement community must become aware of this development as well. While most information on the topic has been military in nature, a growing body of literature has begun to focus on the terrorism potential and criminal use of laser systems against civil aviation and airborne and ground law enforcement assets. This law enforcement threat has emerged in tandem with a marked increase in lasings and illuminations over the past decade and the national tracking of these incidents by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Other issues of interest touch upon law enforcements future utilization of lasers and directed energy weapons and citizens’ future right to bear laserarms (handheld laser weapons).

No one mentions that AIG was the insurance company that insured the Twin Towers SPECIFICALLY against terrorism a month or so before 9/11 happened, and then paid off on the towers’ collapses TWICE based on a friendly lawsuit between friends Larry Silverstein (who owned the Towers) and his buddy Maurice Greenberg, (CEO/owner of AIG) ????

So it would seem that AIG is right in the middle of things, such as THREATS, ATTACKS, etc.—and has been for some time.

Anybody at T.O. care to spend a bit of time connecting THOSE dots?????

A.I.G. Using “Suicide Strategy” to Push Bonuses

Tuesday 17 March 2009

by: Matt Renner, t r u t h o u t | Report

Source: TruthOut

Washington, DC - As nationwide populist anger boils after the news that hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars may be given to employees of the insurance-giant-turned-government-liability American International Group (A.I.G.), President Obama promised to try to block what he described as an “outrage” Monday, but a group of former regulators said the administration must get even tougher with A.I.G.

“[A.I.G.] is a corporation that finds itself in financial distress due to recklessness and greed. Under these circumstances, it’s hard to understand how derivative traders at A.I.G. warranted any bonuses, much less $165 million in extra pay. I mean, how do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?” Obama said, adding, “I’ve asked [Treasury] Secretary Geithner to use that leverage and pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.”

$165 million is set to be paid to executives of A.I.G.’s financial products division, the same people who made unregulated bets against the failure of major financial institutions and other companies. Losses on these bets are a major reason the company is failing, reporting a record-setting $60 billion loss last quarter.

Economics and law Professor William K. Black, a famous figure in the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s for his role as a senior regulator who fingered the then speaker of the House and “The Keating Five” for doing favors for bankers, has been a vocal critic of the bailout programs, which began during the Bush administration.

In an interview with Truthout, Professor Black said that A.I.G. is using a “suicide strategy” to hold the government hostage and keep the bailout funds flowing.

(more…)

By DOUGLAS E. SCHOEN and SCOTT RASMUSSEN

It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama’s high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true. The American people are coming to express increasingly significant doubts about his initiatives, and most likely support a different agenda and different policies from those that the Obama administration has advanced.

Polling data show that Mr. Obama’s approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001.

Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama’s net presidential approval rating — which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve — is just six, his lowest rating to date.

Read Full Article Click Here

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further expanded to include several pages on the anonymous whistleblower site Wikileaks.

Wikileaks was added to the blacklist for publishing a leaked document containing Denmark’s list of banned websites.

The move by the Australian Communications and Media Authority comes after it threatened the host of online broadband discussion forum Whirlpool last week with a $11,000-a-day fine over a link published in its forum to another page blacklisted by ACMA - an anti-abortion website.

ACMA’s blacklist does not have a significant impact on web browsing by Australians today but sites contained on it will be blocked for everyone if the Federal Government implements its mandatory internet filtering censorship scheme.

But even without the mandatory censorship scheme, as is evident in the Whirlpool case, ACMA can force sites hosted in Australia to remove “prohibited” pages and even links to prohibited pages.

Online civil liberties campaigners have seized on the move by ACMA as evidence of how casually the regulator adds to its list of blacklisted sites. It also confirmed fears that the scope of the Government’s censorship plan could easily be expanded to encompass sites that are not illegal.

“The first rule of censorship is that you cannot talk about censorship,” Wikileaks said on its website in response to the ACMA ban.

The site has also published Thailand’s internet censorship list and noted that, in both the Thai and Danish cases, the scope of the blacklist had been rapidly expanded from child porn to other material including political discussions.

Already, a significant portion of the 1370-site Australian blacklist - 506 sites - would be classified R18+ and X18+, which are legal to view but would be blocked for everyone under the proposal. The Government has said it was considering expanding the blacklist to 10,000 sites and beyond.

A confidential memo obtained by Wikileaks shows that not only has the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission created an insider trading loophole big enough to drive a truck through, but that Wall Street is taking full advantage of it, establishing ‘how-to’ programs and even client service divisions to help well-heeled clients circumvent insider trading regulations.

Note: Wikileaks has been taken down but many of their leaked documents to include this one are now in our possession.

Most of us think of insider trading as illegal. It allows those with inside knowledge to tilt the playing field, with the small investors invariably losing to the privileged few. Unfortunately for the small investor, the big boys get to play by different rules, and it has all been made legal, thanks to the SEC.

In 2000 the SEC promulgated Rule 10b5-1. The new Rule was designed to address the confusion caused by a series of court decisions that had left investors uncertain about what constitutes insider trading. Rule 10b5-1 was designed to “clarify” what constitutes illegal insider trading.

But top Wall Street houses were not to be deterred from advantaging their big clients at the expense of their small ones. Wall Street firms like JP Morgan found loopholes in Rule 10b5-1 that allowed them to continue trading on inside information “legally.” Indeed, JP Morgan has gone so far as to set up an entire ’selling program’ within its Securities division to help their clients profit from the loophole.

Documents obtained earlier this month by Wikileaks from JP Morgan Private Bank, which subtitles itself as “World class solutions for wealthy individuals and families”, show the firm has a dedicated ‘10b5-1 Selling program,’ along with a ‘dedicated 10b5-1 team’ to help its clients take advantage of the loophole.

Here’s how it works:

1. An insider client transfers all or a portion of their company stock into a JP Morgan Securities Inc. brokerage account.

2. The insider then develops, in conjunction with the 10b5-1 team, a ‘phased, pre-planned sales program to be executed at either market or specified prices’.

3. Depending on the information available to the insider (but not the public), the insider can decide whether to execute the sale or not.

By gaming the system this way, JP Morgan teaches insiders how to use their knowledge to create a rigged market, one in which it is the “house” that always wins, and the small investor that always loses.

Alan D. Jagolinzer, an assistant professor at Stanford University Graduate School of Business, completed a study of roughly 117,000 trades in 10b5-1 plans by 3,426 executives at 1,241 companies. He found that trades inside the plans beat the market by 6% over six months. By contrast, executives at the same firms who traded without the benefit of plans beat the market by only 1.9%.http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_51/b4014045.htm

One can only guess at how many wealthy executives profited under JP Morgan’s “insider trading program,” leaving small investors holding the bag.

Source: Raw Story

The Navy can spray recruits in the eyes with pepper spray, even though it has been linked to death and is banned during warfare by international law, a federal judge ruled Friday.

The decision, revealed by the blog of Legal Times, is in response to a case brought by naval officers, who argued that the practice of “subjecting trainees to a direct shot of pepper spray was dangerous and deprived them of their constitutional rights to due process and equal protection. They said the Navy could rely on less intense training methods, such as smearing a small amount of the spray on the skin beneath the eyes, or forcing trainees to walk through a room that had previously been sprayed.”

But Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said he wasn’t in a position to overrule the Navy’s decision to continue the practice.

“The use of direct-impact [pepper] spray indisputably risks injury, but the agency decided that this risk was offset by the benefits of training,” Leon wrote. “Plaintiffs allegation that the action was ‘clearly not the product of reasoned thought,’ is little more than a legal conclusion and provides insufficient support for its claim that the agency decision was arbitrary and capricious.”

Pepper spray is made from oleoresin capsicum, an oily extract of pepper plants. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, there have been 27 deaths among people sprayed in California alone since 1993, although the deaths were not directly linked to the chemical. In particular, it can be fatal for individuals with asthma.

Pepper spray is banned for use in war by Article I.5 of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The “spray may contain water, alcohols, or organic solvents as liquid carriers; and nitrogen, carbon dioxide, or halogenated hydrocarbons (such as Freon, tetrachloroethylene, and methylene chloride) as propellants to discharge the canister contents,” the North Carolina Medical journal wrote in a study. “Inhalation of high doses of some of these chemicals can produce adverse cardiac, respiratory, and neurologic effects, including arrhythmias and sudden death.”

According to Legal Times, the judge threw out the navy officers’ constitutional arguments as well, saying the practice of using pepper spray didn’t “shock the conscience,” even though it’s banned for use in warfare by the chemical weapons convention.

By:Lewis Page

Counter Terror Expo News of a possible viable business model for P2P VoIP network Skype emerged today, at the Counter Terror Expo in London. An industry source disclosed that America’s supersecret National Security Agency (NSA) is offering “billions” to any firm which can offer reliable eavesdropping on Skype IM and voice traffic.

The spybiz exec, who preferred to remain anonymous, confirmed that Skype continues to be a major problem for government listening agencies, spooks and police. This was already thought to be the case, following requests from German authorities for special intercept/bugging powers to help them deal with Skype-loving malefactors. Britain’s GCHQ has also stated that it has severe problems intercepting VoIP and internet communication in general.

Skype in particular is a serious problem for spooks and cops.

Being P2P, the network can’t be accessed by the company providing it and the authorities can’t gain access by that route. The company won’t disclose details of its encryption, either, and isn’t required to as it is Europe based.

This lack of openness prompts many security pros to rubbish Skype on “security through obscurity” grounds: but nonetheless it remains a popular choice with those who think they might find themselves under surveillance. Rumor suggests that America’s NSA may be able to break Skype encryption - assuming they have access to a given call or message - but nobody else.

The NSA may be able to do that: but it seems that if so, this uses up too much of the agency’s resources at present.

“They are saying to the industry, you get us into Skype and we will make you a very rich company,” said the industry source, adding that the obscure encryption used by the P2Pware is believed to change frequently as part of software updates.

The spyware kingpin suggested that Skype is deliberately seeking to frustrate national listening agencies, which seems an odd thing to do - Skype has difficulties enough getting revenues out of its vast user base at any time, and a paid secure-voice system for subversives doesn’t seem like a money-spinner.

But corporate parent eBay, having had to write down $1.4bn already following its $2.6bn purchase of Skype back in the bubble-2.0 days of 2005, might see an opportunity here. A billion or two from the NSA for a backdoor into Skype might make the acquisition seem like a sensible idea.

We asked the NSA for comment, particularly on the idea of simply buying a way into Skype, but hadn’t yet received a response as of publication.

WIKILEAKS EDITORIAL

On Thursday afternoon, Oscar Kamau Kingara, director of the Kenyan based Oscar legal aid Foundation, and its programme coordinator, John Paul Oulo, were shot dead at close range in their car less than a mile from President Kibaki’s residence. The two were on their way to a meeting at the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights.

Both had been investigating extra-judicial assassinations by the Kenyan Police. Part of their work forms the basis of the “Cry of Blood” report Wikileaks released on November 1 last year and subsequent follow ups, including a UN indictment last month.

Since 2007 the Oscar foundation has documented 6,452 “enforced disappearances” by police and 1,721 extra-judicial killings.

The murders come just two weeks after United Nations Special Reporter on extra-judicial killings Professor Philip Alston called on on Kenya’s Attorney General and Police Commissioner to be sacked.

(more…)

This demo — from Pattie Maes’ lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry — was the buzz of TED. It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine “Minority Report” Read Full Story

A masked youth throws a petrol bomb at PSNI officers close to were a leading Irish Republican was arrested, Saturday, in connection with the recent murders of two British soldiers, over a hundred Irish Republican’s blocked the main railway line and began rioting in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, Saturday, March, 14, 2009. Police arrested three suspected IRA dissidents _ including a well-known Irish republican _ Saturday on suspicion of killing two off-duty British soldiers, an attack designed to trigger wider violence in Northern Ireland. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

Irish nationalist gangs hurled gasoline bombs at police after three alleged IRA dissidents were arrested on suspicion of killing two British soldiers in an attack designed to trigger wider violence in Northern Ireland.

Police operating in armored cars and flame-retardant suits said none of their officers was injured during the rising mob violence on Saturday in the Irish Catholic end of Lurgan, a religiously divided town southwest of Belfast. Rioters also blocked the main Belfast-to-Dublin railway line that runs alongside the hardline Kilwilkie neighborhood of the town.

Later, police said they arrested a 37-year-old man and 30-year-old woman, and seized a gun and ammunition in the neighboring town of Craigavon, where Irish Republican Army dissidents shot to death a policeman Monday.

Police would not say whether those arrests and the arms find were connected to the March 7 shooting of the soldiers or the subsequent killing of the policeman. Police said the couple were being questioned about unspecified “serious terrorist crime.”
(more…)

Source: The Times News

CHARLOTTE — Saying too much focus is placed on illegal immigration, Latinos from across the state are gathering in Charlotte to talk about their positive contributions and power as a unified community.

The 14th annual Foro Latino kicked off Friday with more than 350 people signed up for workshops on jobs, health care and immigrant rights.

“We’re all here for a reason — change,” said Monserrat Alvarez, a 16-year-old youth leader from Raleigh.

Voicing the feelings of many Latinos across the state, Alvarez said the community feels victimized by opposition groups who call for greater enforcement of immigration laws. Some N.C. residents express concern about Latino immigrants in the country illegally taking jobs and straining schools and hospitals. Many Latino immigrants live in fear of their families being separated.

North Carolina is home to nearly 600,000 Latinos — the fastest growing ethnic group in the state.

Gov. Bev Perdue sent her director of Hispanic/Latino affairs, Axel Lluch, to welcome the group.
(more…)

Anti-government protesters in the capital of Madagascar, Antananarivo. Photo by IRIN.

Let’s hope we are so lucky….

On Sunday the depth of the crisis and the level of social discontent in Madagascar directly affected a group of soldiers of the Army Corps of Personnel and Administrative and Technical Services who had been ordered to move against protesters on the streets. The soldiers refused to obey orders to fire on the people and repress anti-government demonstrators. Following this, they then declared they would not obey government orders either.

As one rebel soldier stated, “We no longer take orders from our hierarchy, we are following our hearts. We were trained to protect property and citizens, not to fire at people. We are with the people.”
(more…)

Source: Wired

Electronics-frying “e-bombs” have been discussed for decades — but rarely, if ever, deployed. Knocking out computers and communications gear with electromagnetic radiation is nice, but commanders prefer the proven method: blowing stuff up.

Now the U.S. Army is developing technology to do both at the same time. Hybrid munitions would give warheads the added punch of an e-bomb that can “destroy and disable electronic systems and their operators” all in one blast. The key is a magnet that blows up and spontaneously demagnetizes, releasing energy as a pulse of power.

(more…)

Source:NaturalNews

The culture of deceit and fraud that permeates conventional medicine became even more apparent today with the announcement that Howard Richman, the former vice president of a pharmaceutical company named Biopure, faked his own cancer and even impersonated a doctor in order to convince a federal judge that he was dying from colon cancer.

This bizarre deceit was an effort by Richman to squirm out of an SEC lawsuit that accused Richman of misleading investors. According to the Associated Press, Richman misled investorsblood replacement product called Hemopure, which is made from cow’s blood. By faking his own cancer and forging a doctor’s note, Richman was able to get a postponement of judgment in the SEC lawsuit, which effectively ended the legal action he would have otherwise faced.

It all makes you wonder just how low the integrity standards really are at drug companies these days. If a highly-paid executive can fake his own cancer in order to avoid a lawsuit brought against him because he lied to investors, what other sorts of fabrications and deceits might be going on at these companies?

about the potential for FDA approval of a

Faking clinical trial data for Vioxx and Celebrex

Meanwhile, a researcher at Baystate Medical Center in Massachusetts, Dr. Scott Reuben, was found to have faked the data used in 21 “scientific” papers published in peer-reviewed medical journals from 1996 - 2008.

The Associated Press is reporting today that journals have begun retracting papers authored by Dr. Reuben. The journal Anesthesia & Analgesia has retracted 10 studies authored by Dr. Reuben, and the journal Anesthesiology has also started retracting studies.

But the damage has already been done: Dr. Reuben’s work was reportedly relied on very heavily by pull-pushing doctors and medication advocates, who cited his studies to “prove” these drugs are safe and effective. In reality, though, it was all just made up!

The fictions of Big Pharma and clinical trials

This is actually the story on just about everything Big Pharma pushes these days: It’s all just fiction shrouded in scientific-sounding language, led by dishonest, corrupt drug company CEOs and deceitful doctors who lie to the world in order to make more money pushing dangerous prescription medications.

Even when drug company executives aren’t lying to their investors or lying to judges, they’re still lying to the FDA and their own customers about the safety of their drugs. Through the cherry-picking of drug trials (and the burying of negative results), they lie to the entire scientific community about the real dangers of their chemical products.

Modern medicine is largely one big lie. It doesn’t work. People aren’t getting any healthier from drugs and surgery, but they sure are becoming increasingly bankrupt.

The “grand clinical trial” of medicating an entire nation and observing the results has proven quite conclusively that drugs and surgery do not produce a healthy nation. That’s the one drug trial they will never report, of course: While people suffer from sky-high rates of degenerative disease, depression, obesity and chemical intoxication, the drug companies hilariously try to convince people they’re somehow getting healthier by popping patented pills.

But the results speak for themselves: Big Pharma is a big lie, and the people pushing the Big Pharma agenda are, themselves, some of the most dishonest and despicable human beings to ever walk the planet.

It is no exaggeration whatsoever to say that if the entire drug industry shut down tomorrow, and all the doctors went on strike, and all the oncologists overdosed on chemotherapy and died, the health of the population would immediately improve.

Modern medicine has become the enemy of good health, and those who advocate drugs and surgery have become well-paid destroyers of lives. We would all be better off simply abandoning nearly all of modern medicine and advocating nutrition, exercise, sunlight and the avoidance of man-made synthetic chemicals.

The Gun Ban list is out!

They have a list and they’re checking it twice, they’re being naughty and that ain’t nice!

Needless to say, I am a little upset by this list. View the Youtube at the bottom of this page.

Here it is, folks, and it is bad news. The framework for legislation is always laid, and the Democrats have the votes to pass anything they want to impose upon us. They really do not believe you need anything more than a brick to defend your home and family. Look at the list and see how many you own. Remember, it is registration, then confiscation. It has happened in the UK, in Australia, in Europe, in China, and what they have found is that for some reason the criminals do not turn in their weapons, but will know that you did.

Remember, the first step in establishing a dictatorship is to disarm the citizens.

(more…)