spiritsoup's Blog

Socializing the Fannie Freddie Mess

Kurt Nimmo

A massive socialist “reorganization” of the Fannie-Freddie fiasco would not be complete without a bit of spin from the Wall Street Journal:

The Treasury Department is putting the finishing touches to a plan designed to shore up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that would essentially result in a government takeover of the mortgage giants.

That’s how it works on Wall Street — dying mammoths rife with loan sharks and scam artists are taken over by the government — that is to say you, the American taxpayer, will pay for everything and soften the blow for the criminal financial class. I mean, you shouldn’t expect the rich stockholders to absorb the loss of all those bad loans.

But never mind. It’s all the fault of borrowers with poor credit. If not for them, the loan sharks and scam artists would never have gone down the road to ruin, not that it matters because they will not be held responsible. Add a couple more numbers to the astounding federal deficit.

The plan is expected to involve putting the two companies into the conservatorship of their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said several people familiar with the matter. That would mean the government would take the reins of the companies, at least temporarily.

Nice word, “conservatorship,” sounds so loving and paternal. Of course, this fatherly concern will not extend to the little people who were endlessly propagandized on the “American dream” of home ownership over the years. No, they’ll be sent packing with destroyed credit ratings. After all, the nanny state is there to take care of the billionaires who are accustomed to the little people socializing their losses.

It is also expected to involve the government injecting capital into Fannie and Freddie. That could happen gradually on a quarter-by-quarter basis, rather than in a single move, one person familiar with the matter said.

In addition, Treasury’s plan includes a top-level management shakeup at both companies, according to people familiar with the plans. Daniel H. Mudd, chief executive of Fannie Mae, and Richard Syron, his counterpart at Freddie Mac, are expected to step down from their posts eventually.

More fiat money down the rat hole. As for Mr. Mudd — nice name, appropriate — and his fellows, they will “step down” when they should be brought up on criminal charges for squandering billions and wrecking countless lives. In Wall Street parlance, a “shake up” means criminals get to walk free and move on to the next scam.

Any move by Treasury would represent perhaps the most significant intervention by the government in the financial industry since the housing bust touched off turmoil in the credit markets a little more than a year ago. From the $168 billion economic-stimulus package in February through the bailout of investment bank Bear Stearns Cos., the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve have taken an increasingly aggressive stance in responding to what has become one of the worst financial crises in decades.

Aggressive? No, that means the perps would be arrested and prosecuted. Instead, the Fannie-Freddie contrivance will be showered with funny money, courtesy of the banker’s club, otherwise known as the Fed. As for “intervention by the government in the financial industry,” it should be noted that Fannie and Freddie were created by the government — known as GSEs, or government sponsored enterprises — and Fannie was a scheme dreamed up as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. It is a government created virtual monopoly of the secondary mortgage market, but then the government has long specialized in setting up monopolies for its buddies.

Freddie and Fannie own or guarantee more than $5 trillion of mortgages. They have suffered combined losses of about $14 billion over the past four quarters as they make provisions for a wave of defaults. Investors worried that a government bailout would wipe out the value of existing stock, and those fears have sent the shares down about 90% from a year ago. Many U.S. banks as well as foreign governments own stock or debt in the two giants, meaning their financial woes could cause broad problems beyond the housing market… Mr. Paulson’s push to win authority was meant to reassure investors that the government wouldn’t allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to fail.

In short, the government will not allow the shareholders to lose their money on bad investments, as they rightly should if we had a real free market, one that rewards and punishes investors for good or bad decisions.

Mr. Paulson is cautious about any plan that appears to benefit shareholders because he doesn’t want the government to be seen as bailing out investors who for years profited from the companies’ success.

Oh, man, that’s rich, as in rich investors protected by the government. Paulson does not want to be seen protecting the financial class, but that’s exactly what he is doing. And the Wall Street Journal is there to shovel the spin.

Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee for president, has said his goal is to make the companies “go away” and to push for regulation that “limits their ability to borrow, shrinks their size until they are no longer a threat to our economy and privatizes and eliminates their links to the government.” Sen. McCain supported giving Treasury the authority to backstop the firms but has said any use of taxpayer funds should be combined with an ouster of management and a ban on lobbying by the companies.

He really doesn’t mean it, of course. McCain will do whatever Wall Street tells him to do. But first he has to convince the cattle he’s their man come November. Funny thing is, a lot of people buy into these inane promises, worth their weight in dung.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, has said the companies are a “weird blend” and that “if these are public entities, then they’ve got to get out of the profit-making business, and if they’re private entities, then we don’t bail them out.”

Does not compute because “private entities” — a nice neutral term, about as amorphous as an amoeba — are habitually bailed out by the government. But then Obama, like his statist twin McCain, are talking out of a certain orifice, one where smoke also on occasion emanates.

No matter, the government will socialize the failure of Fannie-Freddie, the scam gone south. In the meantime, the so-called “subprime crisis” will only intensify and more people will be thrown out on the street. Mudd and the billionaires will be allowed to move on to the next scam and the one after that, further pauperizing the country, as planned

Trading one corruption for another?


s

Now before we all start dancing and singing "ding-dong, the witch is dead,".

I thought to ask myself a few questions. 

So this Cockrel guy is the new mayor in acting.

Understand that I am a little cynical of any one in Wayne county government, so please...bare with me here.

What kind of media is available, what sort of news is this cat into of late.

What's his story?  

Well, seeing how he's the head of a city council that is still involved in a FBI embezzlement investigation I bet it's a hell of story.

I'm not trying to say he has anything to do with the FBI investigation.  I'm just saying that groups tend to elect leaders they deserve.
 
Let's start there, shall we?  See what we know as of yet about this on going FBI debacle.

 July 2 2008 the Detroit Free press published this article: FBI targets 4 on council, and within that article, just about the very first paragraph was this.

"The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the probe's sensitive nature, said they were surprised how cheaply some public officials could be bought."

"If you're going to trade your vote, you'd think it would be for a lot of money," one said.

"Four figures is not a lot of money. ... They were selling their votes in volume."

As if that isn't bad enough, Mr Cockrel had this to say about that information.

"It's not surprising, but it's very disappointing and very disturbing,"  

Not surprising?  Are you serious?

He then adds this statement,

"We'll have to see how this all plays out. But in the meantime, until names are actually dropped, council has to continue to focus on doing its job and it has to be business as usual, no matter how difficult that may be,"  

If I just found that out I would think I'd be a bit more appalled, and stern in speech.

So business as usual, hummmm? 

Now what business is that?  Ripping off the City of Detroit?

What else could it be when 1/3 the council is on the take?  What good is trading a blatant in your face corruption for a more covert one that sells their votes for peanuts?

It appears the only low bid contract given in the city is the bribes given to the city officials. 

They don't even sell us out at a decent price.

The Free Press first reported that one person taped by the FBI was John Clark, Cockrel's chief of staff, who sources said accepted two payments of $2,000 from Rosendall earlier this year. Clark resigned last week.

But ends with, "Cockrel had voted against the deal."

So that makes you wonder...well he did vote it down but in my eyes, when your Chief of Staff is on the take and you have no clue...you are either

A: corrupt too or

B: too ignorant and/or naive to be awarded the right to run the city as mayor in acting.

And who is this Rosendall guy,

Rosendall, 43, of Grand Rapids, vice president for market development for Synagro (A Waste management corporation) before the company announced his suspension Monday, came to the attention of FBI agents several months ago, sources said. He was one of two Synagro representatives involved in helping the company win a lucrative contract in southwest Detroit last November.

Synagro is the next question.   What do they do, and why are they trying to buy our city officials?

On there own site:

Synagro Technologies Inc.

They boast multiple city services including rail transportation, land development, Design/build.

Syngro, who was bought out in April 2007 by none other then the Bush Family Friendly, Carlyle  Group as reported by Behind the Buy Out,  But that fact is not mentioned on the Synagro web site.

Read the entire article from Behind the Buy Out 

Wow! It's enough to make your head hurt isn't it. 

But the soup just gets thicker and thicker, along with all the negative press they have garnered over their involvement with the Council of Corruption that is Detroit.

Now here is a bit about Synagro from Onvia a company used to assist them in there sales leads.

Synagro Earns a 44-Fold Return Winning New Business with Onvia

Synagro is the country's leading independent, full-service provider of residuals management services to municipalities and industrial customers. The company has three regional sales groups across the nation, including a Rail Transportation Division and Engineering & Facilities Development Group that looks into facilities construction. Government business drives 75 percent of Synagro's business revenue, which is supported by a sales force that spans across the country. Each sales person is in charge of their own states and a sales support team assists them in putting together the proposals and pricing for each region. To generate government sales leads, the company was trying to sign up for vendor lists and monitor new business intelligence. However, the company wasn't confident that they were catching all the right opportunities and needed a source to deliver timely government sales leads. They also wanted a way to track competitive data and gain insight into geographic market intelligence."

Sounds like a battle plan to me, "Can't catch the right opportunities?...buy them!

So what was it that Syngro has done for the city other then pay off it's council members?

Here is an snippet from an article from Diane Bukowski:

DETROIT — Without a whimper, Minergy Detroit LLC’s plan for a private incinerator for the city’s water and sewerage department expired after five years of protests by union and environmental activists.

But the company, a subsidiary of the giant Wisconsin Energy Corporation, is still seeking to profit from its 15-year, $375 million deal with the city.

It wants to sell its contract to Houston-based Synagro Technologies, which plans to transform sludge from the Waste Water Treatment Plant downriver into fertilizer pellets for land application. Environmentalists say the process has caused disease and death nationwide.

A city council public hearing on the buy-out is set for Thurs. Feb. 26 at 7 p.m. at the South Rademacher Recreation Center, 6501 S. in Detroit.

“Ever since the EPA banned ocean dumping 10 years ago, a whole industry has grown selling their processes to dispose of [sludge],” said John Riehl, president of Local 207 of the American Federation of State.

“Detroit burns or buries ours. That system has improved. It is certainly better than Synagro’s track record. But if the debate leads council to support pelletizing, remember this, Detroit city workers can do that work also. There is nothing that Synagro could offer that city workers couldn’t do for a lot cheaper with investment in Detroit’s infrastructure.”

Riehl and members of his local, which represents water department workers, fought Minergy’s original plan, saying it would displace nearly 200 city workers.

Water department worker Steven Borella told the council that there is no need for either a private incinerator like that Minergy had planned, or a pelletizing process.

“Our current incinerators have the capacity to handle all the plant’s sludge, 5,266 tons a day,” said Borella.

“The department has invested $300 million in a computer control system to operate the incinerators, and recent improvements can make them virtually emission-free. ”

So what they are doing here, is paying of city officials so they can send even more Michiganders off to the unemployment line, so they can charge the tax payers a huge sum of money to do what our city workers have done for years, but the difference is they can then turn around and sell our own fecal matter to local farmers to fertilize Michigan crops.

I don't know about you, but I'm not really ready to jump on that band wagon...who would?

That's like one step short of, "Solent Green is people."

Well, the good thing is...it's business as usual for the crew down at the Council. 

And why shouldn't it be, it's not their jobs that are being tossed to yet another juggernaut corporation owned by the same group of crooks and thieves that have controlling interest through out the world...meaning that world control is their interests. 

I'm glad Kwame has been ousted, but he isn't even the tip, of the tip of the iceberg that is the corruption in this city,  I will continue to research this matter but, damn I have other things to accomplish then dig through this tangled web of "Sludge".

I don't want this to imply that Cockrel has or had any thing to do with the F.B.I. investigation and I would like to believe he is just naive. 

I just ask...before we all go patting each other on the back, let's not stop asking real questions about the governing body of this, our City.  Whose pocket are they in, and how do their -more often, then not-shady practices effect our economy.

 

Why We Were Falsely Arrested

Amy Goodman
Truthdig
September 4, 2008

St. Paul, Minnesota - Government crackdowns on journalists are a true threat to democracy. As the Republican National Convention meets in St. Paul, Minn., this week, police are systematically targeting journalists. I was arrested with my two colleagues, “Democracy Now!” producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, while reporting on the first day of the RNC. I have been wrongly charged with a misdemeanor. My co-workers, who were simply reporting, may be charged with felony riot.

The Democratic and Republican national conventions have become very expensive and protracted acts of political theater, essentially four-day-long advertisements for the major presidential candidates. Outside the fences, they have become major gatherings for grass-roots movements-for people to come, amidst the banners, bunting, flags and confetti, to express the rights enumerated in the Constitution’s First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Behind all the patriotic hyperbole that accompanies the conventions, and the thousands of journalists and media workers who arrive to cover the staged events, there are serious violations of the basic right of freedom of the press. Here on the streets of St. Paul, the press is free to report on the official proceedings of the RNC, but not to report on the police violence and mass arrests directed at those who have come to petition their government, to protest.

It was Labor Day, and there was an anti-war march, with a huge turnout, with local families, students, veterans and people from around the country gathered to oppose the war. The protesters greatly outnumbered the Republican delegates.

There was a positive, festive feeling, coupled with a growing anxiety about the course that Hurricane Gustav was taking, and whether New Orleans would be devastated anew. Later in the day, there was a splinter march. The police-clad in full body armor, with helmets, face shields, batons and canisters of pepper spray-charged. They forced marchers, onlookers and working journalists into a nearby parking lot, then surrounded the people and began handcuffing them.

Nicole was videotaping. Her tape of her own violent arrest is chilling. Police in riot gear charged her, yelling, “Get down on your face.” You hear her voice, clearly and repeatedly announcing “Press! Press! Where are we supposed to go?” She was trapped between parked cars. The camera drops to the pavement amidst Nicole’s screams of pain. Her face was smashed into the pavement, and she was bleeding from the nose, with the heavy officer with a boot or knee on her back. Another officer was pulling on her leg. Sharif was thrown up against the wall and kicked in the chest, and he was bleeding from his arm.

I was at the Xcel Center on the convention floor, interviewing delegates. I had just made it to the Minnesota delegation when I got a call on my cell phone with news that Sharif and Nicole were being bloody arrested, in every sense. Filmmaker Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films and I raced on foot to the scene. Out of breath, we arrived at the parking lot. I went up to the line of riot police and asked to speak to a commanding officer, saying that they had arrested accredited journalists.

Within seconds, they grabbed me, pulled me behind the police line and forcibly twisted my arms behind my back and handcuffed me, the rigid plastic cuffs digging into my wrists. I saw Sharif, his arm bloody, his credentials hanging from his neck. I repeated we were accredited journalists, whereupon a Secret Service agent came over and ripped my convention credential from my neck. I was taken to the St. Paul police garage where cages were set up for protesters. I was charged with obstruction of a peace officer. Nicole and Sharif were taken to jail, facing riot charges.

The attack on and arrest of me and the “Democracy Now!” producers was not an isolated event. A video group called I-Witness Video was raided two days earlier. Another video documentary group, the Glass Bead Collective, was detained, with its computers and video cameras confiscated. On Wednesday, I-Witness Video was again raided, forced out of its office location. When I asked St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington how reporters are to operate in this atmosphere, he suggested, “By embedding reporters in our mobile field force.”

On Monday night, hours after we were arrested, after much public outcry, Nicole, Sharif and I were released. That was our Labor Day. It’s all in a day’s work.

WWF Blames Carbon for global cooling

Warming, cooling, who cares? Just shut up and accept CO2 taxation
Steve Watson

Infowars.news

Wednesday, Sept 3, 2008

Conservation group World Wildlife Fund has blamed human carbon emissions for the fact that the coldest August has been recorded in Australia for more than 60 years.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

The freezing temperatures are proof of the urgent need to cut carbon pollution, according to WWF development and sustainability program manager Paul Toni.

"We can expect more extremes in climate," Mr Toni said.

Mr Toni said if action was not taken, more volatile weather would be on the radar.

So now carbon emissions are not only responsible for the rapid heating of the Earth, but at the same time are the prime cause of global cooling, according to the WWF.

Which is it to be?

Only two days ago we reported that climate alarmists are touting radical plans to use reflective space drones to block out the Sun and “geo-engineer” the planet to save humanity from rapid global warming caused by greenhouse gasses.

Now we are asked to believe the same gasses are also responsible for unprecedented cooling?

Man-made global warming advocates are scrambling to explain away the fact that 2008 has so far been the coolest in the last five years.

In reality, there has been no global warming since 1998 as temperatures leveled off and are now beginning to plummet as a result of dwindling sunspot activity. Indeed, the month of August passed without a single visible sunspot being observed.

This has led some scientists to believe that we are more at risk from a new ice age than we are from global warming.

Climate change alarmists face embarrassment amidst a barrage of evidence that the planet has embarked on a clear and natural cooling trend.

China recently experienced its coldest winter in 100 years while northeast America was hit by record snow levels and Britain suffered its coldest April in decades and its dullest August since records began in 1929.

Of course, none of these facts fit in with the notion that warming mandates the poor and middle class be hit with multiple CO2 taxes in order to save the planet.

The answer, according to the WWF, seems to be simply to change the phrasing from "global warming" to "climate extremes", leaving the perceived cause in place but still ignoring actual scientific facts.

Looking at America’s Police State

Tim Gatto
LiberalPro
September 3, 2008

Here we are, all primed and pumped for the Republican Convention. This has given the Democrats lots to talk about and also an opportunity to skewer McCain and his new running mate. This doesn’t surprise me, nor does it anger me, every demeaning thing that is said about GOP has this writer’s endorsement, they couldn’t pick on a more deserving target. The only thing that bothers me is their total lack of objectivity when they criticize what the GOP stands for. It hardly influences the masses when they harp on McCain’s war drum beating skills when everyone can observe that Barack Obama’s own predilection for blasting out a great beat on his own set of drums with a talent that has greatly improved over the past few months.

While the Democrats have been decrying the war in Iraq, and have portrayed Senator John McCain as the “war candidate”, Senator Obama has tried to keep the focus on the economy while moving steadily in the same direction as McCain.  

Political analysts and strategy advisers have grossly underestimated the American people this time. It has been painfully obvious that most Americans have let Bush and his henchmen in Congress get away with murder, and I mean that literally, while so many have been silent and complicit. Our leaders have no conscience, and hatch their schemes and plan for conquest, while millions of us wait for a chance to change this nation’s direction. Sadly, for all of us that are truly paying attention, we see that real change is only a mirage.

Just as hope cannot be instilled in society by the hopeless, honesty can not be taught by thieves, and justice can not be administered by criminals, change will not come from those locked into the status quo. The American people however, hoping against reason, tried desperately to believe that one of them would morph into one of us. It may have been just another time in the history of man when good would actually triumph over evil and when reason would replace insanity and we would have a fairytale ending to this national tragedy we have been witnessing during the last decade. The facts are, we have been offered two roads to travel, but they both take us to the same destination; war for resources and empire for profit.

Americans are a people that are slow to anger; in this case I am not describing the people, not their government. The people did not want to enter World War II until we were attacked directly, and once provoked; the people were willing to sacrifice all to ensure victory. We are not a nation of cowards, nor are we a nation of pawns. The mistake that those in power have made is the mistake of underestimating a cultures resolve. Once a certain line is crossed, once boundaries have been overstepped, it is impossible to undo the damage it has done. I believe that this is what’s happening to both political parties in America. The two corporate-led political parties have stepped over the line, both parties have asked Americans to accept the unacceptable, and both parties have lied to the people and both have been, unfortunately for them, caught in their lies.

While the Democrats have been decrying the war in Iraq, and have portrayed Senator John McCain as the “war candidate”, Senator Obama has tried to keep the focus on the economy while moving steadily in the same direction as McCain. The impassioned speech he gave in Denver was looked at skeptically by many, not because of what he said, but for what he failed to say. There was no mention of restoring what we had lost during the Bush Administration, things such as habeas corpus and the end of electronic surveillance of citizens or warrantless searches of homes and property. There was no mention at all of reviewing the draconian laws put in place by Bush and Cheney, or the torture that they have been accused of practicing. There were however, veiled threats against Iran and Russia, and proposals that the military should grow by 65,000 combat soldiers, 10,000 to be sent to Afghanistan so that we can prosecute the “right war” there while leaving tens of thousands of troops in Iraq. This in a time of economic uncertainty when this country spends more on its military than almost all other nations on Earth combined.

Obama didn’t skip a beat when he talked about “Russian aggression”, apparently supporting the lies from the government and the western corporate-owned media that Russia was the aggressor in Georgia when the truth was that Georgia initiated hostilities to regain the autonomous regions. He has supported Bush and his quest to put nuclear medium range missiles in Poland as Russia rightly declares that this would put them in an indefensible position and warned that they would take military action if this comes to pass. This threat by the Russians is completely understandable; it is the American government that is unreasonable. In 1963 we almost went to war over the same type if missiles being installed in Cuba. When JFK finally promised we would take out our medium range missiles in Turkey, war was averted. Now we must sit idly while Bush and Cheney orchestrate another nuclear crisis, this time America plays the villain.

We postulate that a nuclear Iran is unacceptable and that we will embark on a military solution to make sure that it doesn’t happen. The facts are that the United States over 18,000 nuclear warheads, most of them multiple warheads’ (MIRV’s). Iran’s most immediate threat, Israel, has according to most sources, over 300 nuclear warheads in its arsenal. This is a prime example of total hypocrisy. If Israel would agree to dismantle its nuclear weapons and its nuclear programs, would Iran follow suit? Nobody knows, as this line of thought has never been vocalized or written about. Do the majority of American citizens feel that Israel is so important in the scheme of things that they would rush into a situation that could very well provoke World War III? Would American mothers and fathers be willing to sacrifice the lives of their children to insure that Israel has military superiority over Iran? I hardly think so, but if you can analyze the rhetoric coming from both political parties in this country, you would think that we would. The truth is that this nation seems to be willing to do anything in order to protect Israel, even if it means starting a thermo-nuclear war.

When it comes to civil liberties and foreign policy, the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans seem negligible. When it comes to domestic policy, we hear Obama say that he will not outsource our industries and pay workers a fair wage, but when will we hear about support for the unions? What about stopping the “privatization” of our resources that has become the mantra of the corporate world, and when will he propose doing something about the corporate influence of the media? In this country, where a handful of corporations control the bulk of newspapers, television and radio outlets in almost all of our major cities, when will we hear about a return to Federal regulation? Why do we allow this?

The truth is that we won’t hear about it. How can we when our media is so thoroughly controlled by so few corporate interests? Propaganda does not necessarily mean that governments are the only ones that put it out. This is corporate propaganda and it is just as detrimental to a free society as its government cousin. Benito Mussolini once remarked that “fascism could be called corporatism”. This is nothing new. When corporations and the government control the media and the resources in a nation, and the people have no voice, that’s simply fascism. This is where we find ourselves today.

The people of this country are finding that out. We have all heard of the police raids on protesters that occurred Sunday morning in St. Paul before any protests took place. We have heard about how the police went into houses occupied by college students, guns drawn, and how they handcuffed the “suspects” and made them lie face-down for hours. We have read about the warrantless searches and the confiscation of computers and other personal items. This was done by police that didn’t even come from St. Paul!

There were arrests of demonstrators in Denver also. Some of the same heavy-handed techniques were used there. Since when do peaceful protesters deserve this kind of treatment? What’s happening in this country? When did we lose the right to dissent?

The American people are simply fed-up with both the Republicans and the Democrats. We are tired of the wars and the lies. We are tired of the fear tactics and the police state we are evolving into. The thought of a third-party candidate winning this election is not so far-fetched as it once was. It’s about time.

Ventura Hints at a 2012 Presidential Run



Former Min. Governor Jesse Ventura speaks before 10,000 in attendance and millions watching on C-SPAN during the Rally For the Republic Convention in Minnesota yesterday.

During an impassioned speech in which he called for a revolution to take back the country, former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura voiced 9/11 truth and personal accountability for our failing governmental policies to the 10,000 in attendance and the millions watching on C-Span and You Tube at the Rally For The Republic yesterday.

He also urged Americans to vote with there hearts and conscience, saying that an election isn't a horse race...you don't try to pick the winner.  "Don't ever let a democrat or republican tell you you wasted your vote."  He went on to say that, "if you don't vote your heart or conscience...you have wasted your vote."

Ventura also strongly hinted that he is considering running for the presidency in 2012.

“I’m going to move on to another subject that a lot of people don’t want to discuss today,” he said, “I know when I discuss it, it’s amazing, I get attacked! And that’s something called 9/11!”

The crowd cheered and applauded as Ventura made numerous salient points about the FBI’s failure to list 9/11 on Bin Laden’s rap sheet and the DOJ’s failure to charge him.

“They charged him when he blew up our embassy in ‘98, why the biggest terrorist attack in history have they failed to officially charge him for? Why have they not convened a grand jury, presented their evidence and got an indictment?” asked Ventura. “When the FBI was pressed as to why 9/11 wasn’t included, their response was - we don’t have enough evidence.”

“Why did we have a President who stonewalled any investigation into 9/11 for two years?,” added the former Governor, as portions of the crowd chanted, “9/11 was an inside job.”

Ventura slammed the media for slavishly devoting a whole month of coverage to the death of Anna Nicole Smith, labeling it a sign of “the dumbing down of America.”

He also expressed his support for the Second Amendment and reminded people that, "The founding fathers didn’t write it into the Constitution so people could hunt because if you didn't hunt, you didn't eat, "  but that the right to bear arms was about the right of the people to overthrow a corrupt government.

Ventura also talked about his success as a third party candidate and encouraged people to vote locally for independent candidates to beak the Republican-Democrat stranglehold.

“So it can be done - don’t ever allow anyone to tell you that it can’t be done, it can be done!” Ventura exclaimed.

Ventura continued the discussion about 9/11 backstage when reporters asked him about his comments. Ventura called for a new independent investigation to be conducted without a conclusion having already been pre-determined, as was the case with the government-mandated inquiries.

Ventura concluded his speech by saying, “We can take our country back, it can be done, but it’s not gonna happen with talk - it’s gonna happen with action. I wrote the book Don’t Start The Revolution Without Me - well I’m here….let’s get the revolution going!” he concluded to rapturous applause, adding that if the country showed him it was possible, he would consider running in 2012, vowing, “we’ll give them a race they’ll never forget!”

Watch Jesse Ventura’s full speech below in three parts.

First Amendment no longer applies as cops Arrest AP Photographer, Broadcaster At Start Of RNC



First amendment trashed as journalists body slammed, beaten and handcuffed simply for covering protests

Plaudits for the relative restraint of Denver police during last week’s Democratic National Convention are not set to be repeated at the RNC, as cops signaled their intent by arresting an AP photographer as well as Democracy Now host Amy Goodman simply for documenting protests in downtown St. Paul.

Associated Press photographer Matt Rourke was arrested on a gross misdemeanor riot charge simply for taking pictures of a protest yesterday.

“Covering news is a constitutionally protected activity, and covering a riot is part of that coverage,” AP assistant chief of bureau in Washington David Ake said. “Photographers should not be detained for covering breaking news.”

Democracy Now host Amy Goodman was arrested after she complained about the assault and arrest of her colleagues, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar.

According to Democracy Now, “All three were violently manhandled by law enforcement officers. Abdel Kouddous was slammed against a wall and the ground, leaving his arms scraped and bloodied. He sustained other injuries to his chest and back. Salazar’s violent arrest by baton-wielding officers, during which she was slammed to the ground while yelling, “I’m Press! Press!,” resulted in her nose bleeding, as well as causing facial pain. Goodman’s arm was violently yanked by police as she was arrested.”

“During the demonstration in which the Democracy Now! team was arrested, law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force against protesters and journalists. Several dozen demonstrators were also arrested during this action, including a photographer for the Associated Press.”

All three were eventually released but face felony charges. Democracy Now has vowed to fight the false charges which they characterized as an intimidation of independent journalists.

Another AP photographer, Evan Vucci, was body slammed, kicked in the ribs and then handcuffed by police, only avoiding arrest by showing his press credentials.

“The police had pushed the protesters into a parking lot where they had police coming from all sides to encircle one area,” Vucci said. “Once they got all the protesters into this one parking lot they kind of rushed and arrested all the protesters in there,” said Vucci.

With 50,000 demonstrators expected to protest the RNC, more incidents of this kind can be expected.

On Friday, the Ramsey County Sheriff’s office, directed by federal authorities and armed with semi-automatic weapons, raided the headquarters of a protest group and detained and photographed 50 people. Six were arrested on charges of organizing a riot. None of the six have been convicted of a felony or crime of violence and all hold respectable positions within the community.

The raids were carried out after moles were planted in the group by the Minneapolis Joint Terrorist Task Force.

The raids were specifically “aided by informants planted in protest groups,” notes Salon writer Glenn Greenwald.

“Back in May, Marcy Wheeler presciently noted that the Minneapolis Joint Terrorist Task Force — an inter-agency group of federal, state and local law enforcement led by the FBI — was actively recruiting Minneapolis residents to serve as plants, to infiltrate “vegan groups” and other left-wing activist groups and report back to the Task Force about what they were doing. There seems to be little doubt that it was this domestic spying by the Federal Government that led to the excessive and truly despicable home assaults by the police yesterday,” writes Greenwald.

Amy Goodman arrested for asking questions about the assault and arrest of her colleagues.

Police fire tear gas at protesters as they run away.

Concentration camp like holding cells built for protesters at the DNC


During the 2004 Republican Nation Convention in New York City, over 1,700 protesters were taken into police custody in one of the most sweeping mass-arrests in US history. Many were held on Staten Island’s Pier 57, inside a warehouse which was contaminated with lead and asbestos. Some were held for days, and without proper access to food, water, outside communication or legal counsel.

And now the government is looking to out do themselves in tyranny in Denver which is hosting the Democratic National Convention.

Not that the candidates of this present farce of democracy are any different from one another, both are globalist looking to dissolve our Republic into the North American Union. Both are members of the CFR and both are Tri-lateralist.

But God forbid you go to the DNC and reveal this information or protest the desecration of the Constitution by both parties, because if you do you will find yourself being tasered and hauled of to the cages built for those that speak the truth.

In Orwells book 1984 he writes, "In times of deceit, speaking the truth is a revolutionary act." And that, sadly, has become the case in this Nation today.

And why is the truth not being spoken, who's to blame for the lies that are peddled as truth? Surely, some are more guilt then others. But the fact is, if you want to know who's to blame just look into a mirror.

Our government has over ran our rights, have legalized the illegal actions of corporate America with bogus bills such as FISCA, they have instilled free speech zones (Which just goes to show there is no free speech.) And now they set up camps for those of us that see past their smoke screen of lies, spin, and Orwellian double think.

On Wednesday, a Denver CBS affiliate sent a news crew to crash the police department’s improvised detention facility, found in a warehouse owned by the city on the north-east side of town.

"This is a building filled with metal holding cells," described reporter Rick Sallinger, introducing the segment. "We showed up at the facility unannounced today, the doors were wide open, and we managed to shoot for several minutes until a Denver sheriff’s captain asked us to leave."

Footage of the warehouse revels tall, chain-link fence capped by barbed wire, and segmented pens each bearing an identifying letter at about shoulder height.

The news crew was not invited, nor welcome. Cpt. Frank Gale of the Denver Sheriff’s Department called the facility "a secured area," and worried that information related to the site would be used "by people who are potentially trying to be disruptive."

"Each of these fenced in areas is about five yards by five yards," said Sallinger. "There’s a lock on the door. How long those arrested will be kept here is not known. A sign on the wall reads, ‘Warning! Electric stun devices used in this facility.’"

Area activists are not amused at the news. CBS carried its footage of the newfound jail to Adam Jung, with Tent State University, and Zoe Williams, a Code Pink organizer.

"Very reminiscent of a political prisoner camp, or a concentration camp," said Williams.

"I mean, that’s how you treat cattle," added Jung. "… It’s a meat processing plant."

The detention site was supposed to be a secret, said Sallinger.

"This facility will not be used for long-term detention," stated a Denver police department letter to area residents. "Arrestees who are processed at this facility will be there for no more than the few hours it requires for processing. Water, bathrooms, medical staff and phones will be available to them. The facility will be fully staffed to ensure its safe and secure operation."

ACLU Colorado is currently pressing the police department for further information.

The following video was aired by Denver’s CBS 4 News on August 13, 2008.

Kangaroo Court verdict

Paul Craig Roberts

Counterpunch
August 7, 2008

Now that military officers selected by the Bush Pentagon have reached a split verdict convicting Salim Hamdan, a onetime driver for Osama bin Laden, of supporting terrorism, but innocent of terrorist conspiracy, do you feel safe?

Hamdan was not defended by the slick lawyers that got O.J. Simpson off, and he most certainly did not have a jury of his peers.

Or are we superpower Americans still at risk until we capture bin Laden’s dentist, barber, and the person who installed the carpet in his living room?

The Bush Regime with its comic huffings and puffings is unaware that it has made itself the laughing stock of the world, a comedy version of the Third Reich.

Hamdan was not defended by the slick lawyers that got O.J. Simpson off, and he most certainly did not have a jury of his peers. Hamdan was defended by a Pentagon appointed US Navy officer, and his jurors were all Pentagon appointed US military officers with an eye on their careers. Even in this Kangaroo Court, Hamdan was cleared of the main charge.

The US Navy officer who was Hamdan’s appointed attorney is certainly no terrorist sympathizer. Yet even this United States officer said that the rules Bush designed for the military tribunals were designed to achieve convictions. He also said that the judge allowed evidence that would not have been admitted by any civilian or military US court. He said that the interrogations of Hamdan, which comprised the basis of the Bush Regime’s case, were tainted by coercive tactics, including sleep deprivation and solitary confinement.

Does this make you a proud American?

Do you think you are made more safe when you stand there while “your” government implements its own version of Joseph Stalin’s show trials?

The trial and conviction of Hamdan has made every American very unsafe.

The one certain fact about US law is that it is expanded until it applies to everyone. Consider RICO, for example, the asset freeze law that was intended only in criminal cases involving the Mafia; it wasn’t long before RICO found its way into civil divorce proceedings.

Bush’s multi-year, multi-billion dollar “war on terror” has been reduced to railroading a low level employee, a driver, for “terrorism.”

One would hope that the Hamdan verdict would be enough shame and ridicule for the US in one day. But no, Bush didn’t stop there. On his way to the Beijing Olympics, President Bush expressed “deep concerns” for the state of human rights in China.

But not in Guantanamo, nor in Abu Ghraib, nor in the CIA’s torture dungeons used for “renditions,” nor in Iraq and Afghanistan where the US is expert at bombing weddings, funerals, children’s soccer games, and every assortment of civilians imaginable.

As the good book says, clean the beam from your own eye before pointing to the mote in your brother’s eye.

But Americans, the salt of the earth, have neither beams nor motes. We are the virtuous few, ordained by God to impose our hegemony on the world. It is written, or so say the neocons.

What would President Bush say if, heaven forbid, the Chinese were as rude as he is and asked Mr. Superpower why the land of “freedom and democracy” has one million names on a watch list. China with a population four times as large doesn’t have a watch list with one million names.

What would President Bush say if China asked him why the US, with a population one-fourth the size of China’s has hundreds of thousands more of its citizens in prison? The percentage of Americans in prison is far higher than in China and is a larger absolute number.

What would President Bush say if China asked him why he used lies and deception to justify his invasion of Iraq. China, unlike Bush, is not responsible for 1.2 million dead Iraqis and 4 million displaced Iraqis.

China’s human rights policy is not perfect. China’s greatest human rights failing is that China is the Bush Regime’s prime enabler of its war crimes and human rights abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan. By financing Bush’s budget deficit, China is financing Bush’s gratuitous wars. Indeed, China can be said to finance the weaponry that the US gives Israel to enable the suppression of the Palestinians and with which to bomb the civilian population of Lebanon.

China is a serious human rights abuser, because China is complicit in Bush’s human rights abuses.

If we are honest about who is actually murdering and abusing people, it is the US, Israel, and the UK. There’s your “axis of evil.”

Bernanke spins more webs



This morning Federal Reserve chairman Helicopter Ben Bernanke testified before the Senate Banking Committee, he sounded another warning that rising prices for energy and food are elevating inflation risks.

But the truth is, the Fed printing [at interest] money to bail out banks such as Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac and Bear Stern not to mention Printing money to fund an un-Constitutional war is the inflation fact.

Inflation has caused the rising prices not the other way around. He should have warned us that inflation has raised the price of energy and food because that would be the truth. Double speaking crook.

I wager some one is already gearing up to buy out Mae and Mac for pennies on the dollar just like J.P. Morgan buying out Stern shortly after we, the taxpayers bailed them out.

AP states, "The two companies hold or guarantee more than $5 trillion in mortgages — almost half of the nation's total. The Bush administration is asking Congress to temporarily increase lines of credit to Fannie and Freddie and to let the government buy their stock. The Fed has offered to let the companies draw emergency loans.

The pledges of aid have raised concerns about the government's role in such financial problems and the risk to taxpayers."

So in other words the Privately owned Federal Reserve has just gained control of over 50% of our nations land through bailing out Mae and Mac. And we see how well they have handled our dollar.

Ted Anderson of Midas Resources, when asked on syndicated radio, "Have you ever seen it this bad?"

"No...never. I have never seen [the economy] this bad. And I started in economics when Carter was in office and inflation was running rampant."

Bob Chapman of The International Forecaster

http://www.theinternationalforecaster.com/

Bob_Chapman also see things coming to a head, "We will feel the whole brunt of this inflation induced Depression within the next 2 1/2 to 3 years."

Though there are some economist stating the truth, the fact still remains covered in the MSM, it's the fall of the dollar through rampant inflation to support a monetary system that's time has come, that has effected us.

Yet our Government is handing these greedy incompetents more power by handing them the housing industry.

People fell for the adjustable rate mortgage to get more worthless Fed notes through over inflated housing worth, now that the market is coming down and those people who invested in an unstable housing market, pulling equity out of a home in hopes of selling it on a Bull market are losing those homes, but that's the market clearing out the unwise investors. That's part of free market.

The real question however, is where has almost all the Middle Classes wealth ended up in times such as these; just as in the Great Depression, because it doesn't disappear it only gets transfered, but where?

Into the coffers of the Huge Bank cartels.

And now the Fed bankers have almost 50% of the American mortgage industry, as if it isn't enough to hold the Monopoly on the dollar...any way the Congress had hearings on just who is in control of the dollar and how to set it's stability on the world market.

Here just watch this clip from the Financial Service Hearings. With a prelude from Ron Paul who asked for these hearings..





The Main Stream Media is backing the play of the Fed with their pom-pom squad of stories but that doesn't surprise me, knowing who owns the MSM.

But the Fed is the problem, they have been the problem, they have caused Depressions and funded both sides of war. Because they print the worlds money...at interest and in war time Nations need to print far more money so they gain huge sums in interest just from printing the money.

It's all tied into the monopoly on money issuance. That's what this nation fought England for, not taxes on tea but because the King wouldn't allow the Colonies to print their own interest free money.

This is the head of the Beast that this nations rouge government has become. Get out of the Fiat currency, get back to sound money, gold and SILVER. Remonetize silver and get our dollar back to the worth it had in the 40's.

Gas was 23 cents in 47, in 47' our quarters were .25 ounce of silver.
Silver is now around $18.97 an ounce around $4.55 Fed notes per .25 ounces.

The same silver quarter from 47' which is 99.999% pure is now worth $4.55 Fed notes in it's weight in silver...around the same as a gallon of gas.

We need to have sound money. The National deficit was only paid off once...and that was by Andrew Jackson and he did it with a currency backed by silver and gold not with a paper Federal Reserve debt generating fiat note that needed legislation passed (such as the IRS act to make us debt enslaved to the Fed for printing OUR money.
Though the 16th Amendment was never ratified by the proper amount of States to make it a law.) to make it have worth.

But this isn't being taught in colleges or university, when you bring up such blatantly documented fact before class or quote magazine articles by those that were there during the Great Depression, Lindburg and McFadden or Wilson's letter you are scoffed at.

It's sad really, we are all feeling the pinch of war spending and this thing is spiraling so fast and out of control that I actually believe that the Banker Cartels are going to even feel this crash. With state elections coming up I think we need to find the candidates that will support sound monetary policies, not just blindly follow the Fed into the bowels of Depression.

It is also possible and lawful for the State to issue it's own money backed by silver and gold. And maybe if the States started to issue real, sound money the Federal Government would follow suit.

We see the crash looming over us.

Government officials, major U.S. Corporations, hell even Carl Rove fled, now he is under indictment. The industrial/military, fiat system is tumbling down yet Bush is still telling the people there is no problem and the economies fine.

What a load of bull. It used to be the Fed would lie and the market would go up for a while but now...the Fed spins it's webs of deceit and no one believes it and the market falls.

And finally it has come to them jumping ship like the rats they are.

This is only the beginning, God forbid we invade Iran, that will be the end of what is left of our global credibility and the few Constitutional rights we have yet to hand over to Big Brother.

Since when does the city council have the right to sell off public bought assets?

Am I the only one who thinks that this city has no right to sell off assets that we, the tax payers have paid for.

If this last 30 years have shown us any thing, it's the leaderships (If that's what they should be called) blatant greed and misuse of public funds that have caused our cities debt and now, to save their own arses they plan to sell the tunnel, we the tax payers have paid for.

How about force them to pay back all the misused monies and wasted dollars they have squandered on personal trips, cars, dinners, sleazy junkets, unneeded trials and whores.

Sell the damn Mansion, there hasn't been a mayor in this City that deserves to have their home paid for by us...at least not in my lifetime or my fathers father for that matter.

They had to have had a house they lived in before they were elected. Hell let them stay there.

If anyone at your job wasted money like these incompetent morons, they would be booted out and/or imprisoned. So why are the Mayor and Council members given a different set of rules?

I'll wager the FBI will be as useful in their so called "investigation" as they were in stopping the events of 9-11 from happening even though the had plenty of fore warning from France, Australia, England, Pakistan and Syria, or FEMA in helping ease the hurts of the poor in New Orleans and flood victims in the Mid West.

So don't look to them for any sort of justice, if anything their involvement just proves there will be no justice.

This is just a contrived bread and circus to keep us all from getting pissed off enough to actually march downtown and physically throw these clowns out of office.

And lets face facts, if things are this corrupt on the City level, just imagine how bad it is on the State level or worse yet how monstrous it is on the Federal Level. When is enough, enough?

When will we rise up against these corrupt, rich, greedy, banker puppet, jackasses that look to destroy as many lives as they can, as they back stab their way up the the political ladder?

I don't know about anyone else, but it's enough to raise the bile to the back of my throat.

Iran's Photoshopped Missiles Are "Glorified Scuds"
Ridiculous merry-go-round over fake photos and the real facts behind Iran's non existent weapons program

The events of the last two days surrounding the Iranian missile tests once again highlight that the perception of any threat Iran poses to the U.S. and even to Israel is wholly manufactured and has been blown out of all proportion by the Western media and, by proxy, the two presidential candidates.

Several defense analysts reiterated yesterday that the missile test, far from being a show of strength on the part of the Iranians was another reminder of their supreme lack of fire power.

Mark Fitzpatrick of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said:

"In terms of capability, they claimed the Shahab-3 could travel 2,000 kilometers carrying a one-tonne warhead. This is very unlikely."

“The Shahab-3 normally has a range of 1,300 kilometers and the range can be extended to 2,000 kilometers but it would require a much lighter warhead."

As Pepe Escobar of the Asian Times points out, "Experts disagree on the merits of the Shahab-3 - a copy of the North Korean Nodong; for some it's not that less erratic than a glorified Scud."

In a nutshell, not only does Iran not have any nuclear warheads to fire at Israel, it doesn't even have the missiles to put them on.

This tallies with the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency and even the US's own National Intelligence Estimate, seemingly now completely forgotten, which have both declared that an Iranian weapons program does not exist and has not existed for at least five years.

And now we come to the missiles that never were.

Despite both the Iranian state media and our own lamestream repeaters having reported that Iran fired a barrage of missiles over two days, defense officials have since admitted that only one missile was fired yesterday and seven, not nine were fired on Wednesday.

The reason one further

missile was fired a day late was because it failed on the first day, a fact that was handily photoshopped out of photographs and replaced with a clone of one of the other firing missiles before being released to the media (see above).  {Note the halo of brighter blue around the missile.}

The doctored image, said to have been released to the AFP by Sepah News, the media arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, went on to appear on the front pages of The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers as well as on BBC News, MSNBC, Yahoo! News, NYTimes.com and many other major news Web sites.

AFP retracted the photo yesterday afternoon and throughout the day, according to the New York Times, several news sites including LATimes.com and MSNBC.com denied knowledge of where the photograph had originated.

Meanwhile the London Times sat on the fence and ludicrously cut the picture in half!! Now there's only two missiles!

This all only came to light because the blog site little green footballs noticed the doctoring and ran a story on it, a fact that the mainstream media ignored altogether. The Washington Post briefly ran a piece on the fake photo with a credit to LGF, but has since removed the story from their website.

Several experts on photography have now agreed that the photograph was digitally manipulated.

Who altered the photograph? who knows, but clearly it was done in order to cover up the embarrassing fact for Iran, and anyone who would want to continue hyping an imaginary Iranian weapons threat, that one of their "glorified scuds" failed.

If Iranian state authorities were responsible for the missile fakery, then they are either incredibly stupid or are now desperate to make it seem they have more military might than reality has proven. Either way this does not bode well for the rest of the world.

“I know that these missiles are part of a threat to wipe Israel off the map, but now they've proved that they have the Photoshop capabilities to do it.” one NY Times commenter succinctly offers.

"Clearly someone thought four missiles would be 33% more scary than three." another suggests.

In closing, consider the following.

Israel has recently spent the last two months conducting huge military exercises involving more than 100 F-16 and F-15 fighter jets, openly declaring them as dry runs for a strike on Iran, and has also openly declared war with Iran to be "Inevitable."

Add to this the fact that Congress is considering an absolute blockade of the entire country of Iran, and punishment for any country or any business group trading with Iran.

And where is it written in our Constitution that we are to be the protectors of Israel?  Or that we should be the ones to fund them?  Maybe if we left the region, the neighboring nations would actually take care of these issues themselves using their money, resources and manpower.

We also have, according to Congressman Ron Paul, members of Congress quietly wishing to preemptively nuke Iran.

Israeli war minister Ehud Barak will visit Washington next week to meet with top U.S. government officials and President Bush in what some are suggesting will be the final planning session in anticipation of a military strike on Iran.

None of these things are considered by the controlled media to be provocations, but a test of substandard missiles by Iran, Photoshopped to cover up it's partial failure, has made the front pages everywhere as an impending and deadly threat.

Inevitably, the two presidential candidates have added their own seasoning to the same bubbling cauldron of B.S.

John McCain, who earlier this week joked that rising exports of US cigarettes is "a good way to kill Iranians", stated that "Iran's most recent missile tests demonstrate again the dangers it poses to its neighbors and to the wider region, especially Israel." He also ludicrously used Iran's missile test as a way of vindicating the establishment of U.S. missile "defense" shields in the Czech Republic and Poland, countries Iran couldn't hit even if it wanted to (which would take some explaining if it decided it did).

In fact, while McCain declared the missile test a grave threat to Eastern Europe, the Russians used the same event to claim the exact opposite!

MCain's presidential "opponent" Obama, repeated a call for "coercive diplomacy" and stated "The threat from Iran's nuclear program is real and it is grave."

The Iranian threat is so grave and real that it has to be photoshopped, wildly exaggerated and repeatedly blown out of all proportion by every arm of the corporate media before anyone will buy it.

The one fact I have yet to hear any media outlet, Mainstream or otherwise mention is that I find it odd that every country we have invaded or are looking to invade are out side of the International Central Banking System. And if human history has shown us anything it's that the International Bankers have funded governments on both sides of every war since the rampage of Napoleon through Europe during the late 1700's. And nothing...absolutely nothing is more profitable for those that produce money (at interest) for governments then war, for never was there a country that would not spare any expense to win the out come of a war. Even if it means bankrupting their people to do it.

A must see movie about the history of our financial system

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Monday, July 7, 2008

Bombing raises questions about the CIA, ISI and the Afghanistan opium trade

Afghanistan’s interior ministry has accused a “foreign intelligence agency” of being behind today’s deadly suicide bombing that ripped apart the country’s Indian embassy in Kabul, killing 41 people. Could the event represent another “false flag” run by American intelligence as a means of maintaining a military presence in Afghanistan and control of the country’s lucrative opium trade?

A further 141 were injured when the bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into two diplomatic vehicles entering the embassy and the blast also devastated nearby shops and buildings.

“The interior ministry believes this attack was carried out in coordination and consultation with an active intelligence service in the region,” the ministry said in a statement.

"Afghanistan has previously accused Pakistani agents of being behind a number of attacks on its soil,” according to a London Guardian report, referring to the notorious Pakistani ISI intelligence agency.

As Jane’s Information Group notes, “The CIA has well-established links with the ISI, having trained it in the 1980s to ‘run’ Afghan mujahideen (holy Muslim warriors), Islamic fundamentalists from Pakistan as well as Arab volunteers by providing them with arms and logistic support to evict the Soviet occupation of Kabul.”

“Opium cultivation and heroin production in Pakistan’s northern tribal belt and neighboring Afghanistan was also a vital offshoot of the ISI-CIA co-operation. It succeeded not only in turning Soviet troops into addicts, but also in boosting heroin sales in Europe and the US through an elaborate web of well-documented deceptions, transport networks, couriers and payoffs. This, in turn, offset the cost of the decade-long anti-Soviet ‘unholy war’ in Afghanistan.”

Could the Kabul bombing be a joint ISI-CIA false flag for the purposes of creating a pretext for the continued presence of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, control of the booming opium drugs trade and the construction of permanent military bases?

As we reported last month, Middle East sources indicated that U.S. forces gave the green light for the Taliban to attack a government prison in Kandahar on June 13th, and stood idly by while Taliban fighters violently freed more than 1000 inmates.

According to some observers, the recent apparent resurgence of the Taliban has been encouraged by NATO and the U.S. as a bulwark against political pressure and calls for troops to leave the country.

Without an enemy to fight, there would be no justification for a continued U.S. and NATO presence in Afghanistan. There would be no more weapons sales contracts and no more rebuilding contracts for Halliburton. Opium cultivation would fall back into the hands of warlords and the Taliban, who banned production before the U.S. invasion in 2001, after which heroin flooded the streets of the U.S. and UK in record numbers as cultivation soared 50 per cent year on year. Afghanistan now exports upwards of 92 per cent of the world’s supply of opium, which is used to make heroin. Not to mention the plethora of pharmaceuticals that are pushed almost non-stop via television and magazine adds.
You would have had to have had your head in the sand for decades to not know how long this industry has been in bed with our Federal government.

Have doubts of U.S government involvement in drug smuggling? In this piece of footage from 60 minutes from 1993, Mike Wallace interviews former head of the DEA, Ron Bonners regarding cocaine smuggling by the CIA.

And if you are thinking, "Well, that was a long time ago," here's a story that got next to no MSM time from a more recent date, December, 2007.

As Professor Michel Chossudovsky writes, “U.S. military presence has served to restore rather than eradicate the drug trade.”

“Implemented in 2000-2001, the Taliban’s drug eradication program led to a 94 percent decline in opium cultivation. In 2001, according to UN figures, opium production had fallen to 185 tons. Immediately following the October 2001 US led invasion, production increased dramatically, regaining its historical levels.”

“Based on wholesale and retail prices in Western markets, the earnings generated by the Afghan drug trade are colossal. In July 2006, street prices in Britain for heroin were of the order of Pound Sterling 54, or $102 a gram,” Chossudovsky notes.

The necessity for continued violence in Afghanistan exists just like it does in Iraq, for the pretext of justifying an endless military occupation and the opportunity to build military bases that will be used as launch pads for future wars, as is now being discussed for Iraq.

As we have highlighted in the past, links between Taliban leadership and the U.S. military-industrial complex are documented.

As Seymour Hersh reported in January 2002, at the height of the war in Afghanistan, hundreds of Taliban fighters “accidentally” ended up on U.S. organized special safety corridor airlifts right before the fall of Kunduz.

The Taliban itself was a creation of the CIA having been set up and bankrolled by the U.S. in tandem with Pakistan’s ISI.

“In the 1980s, the CIA provided some $5 billion in military aid for Islamic fundamentalist rebels fighting the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, but scaled down operations