Obama To Appoint Council On Foreign Relations Crony as U.N. Ambassador
In a brief addendum to our exposure of Barack H. Obama as a CFR tool, I would like to congratulate Steve Watson, the British journalist who correctly predicted notable CFR Member Susan E. Rice would be appoint to a high level position within the Obamadministration. While this blog along with other news sources saw her as a likely appointment to Secretary of State or National Security Advisor, her position has now been annouced as Abassador to the United Nations.
“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.” Barack Obama, July 2008
This statement begs a number of questions. First, what are the CIA and FBI for if not to protect the nations civilians? What sort of equipment does he see fit to use in this sort of capacity? Will we soon be parking tanks alongside our fire tankers in local fire stations? If not, why should it be "just as well funded".
Perhaps he intends it as some sort of local neighborhood watch program. If so, I would imagine most citizens would gladly take part for little or nothing. I guess what bothers me the most is that he honestly believes, without having yet seen his first national intelligence briefing, that we need another "security force" among our citizenry.
Representatives for Senator Barack Obama will not confirm or deny that he attended the Bilderberg Group meeting on June 5, 2008. Reporters were unaware of the secret meeting until they were on the airplane heading to Northern Virginia where the meeting was being held.
Obama spokesperson refused to talk about if Obama attended the meeting
Spokesperson would not deny his attendance
Meeting held under tight security
Bilderberg Group Meeting
Jim Tucker, Bilderberg Group detective asked Obama's campaign spokesperson if he attended the meeting. The spokesperson refused to discuss the subject any further, but also would not deny his attendance.
The Bilderberg Group is a extremely private group for political figures and world leaders. The groups are held annually and are only for people with invitations
According to news reports, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton went out of their way to hold their long-awaited private meeting in a very specific location - not at Hillary’s mansion in Washington - but in Northern Virginia, which also just happens to be the scene of the 2008 Bilderberg meeting.
Obama’s spokesman Robert Gibbs told the media that Obama and Clinton held a private meeting last night but he refused to disclose where it taken place, except that it was not at Clinton’s home in Washington, as had been widely reported. Hillary campaign managers also refused to disclose the location of the rendezvous.
"Reporters traveling with Obama sensed something might be happening between the pair when they arrived at Dulles International Airport after an event in Northern Virginia and Obama was not aboard the airplane," reports the Associated Press.
Dulles just happens to be walking distance from the Westfields Marriott hotel in Chantilly where Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller and the rest of the Bilderberg globalists are convening.
"Asked at the time about the Illinois senator’s whereabouts, Gibbs smiled and declined to comment," the reports adds.
What is the only political "event" taking place in Northern Virginia at the moment? The Bilderberg Group meeting of course. Rather than taking the easier option of meeting at Clinton’s Washington mansion, Obama and Hillary went out of their way to grace the Bilderberg elitists with their presence.
The neo-liberal website Wonkette, which had previously ridiculed "conspiracy theorists" for ascribing power to Bilderberg, seemed to take a somewhat different tone when it made the connection between Obama and Hillary’s meeting and the Bilderberg Group.
"Guess who had a very private talky-talk in (maybe) romantic Northern Virginia tonight, probably at the Bilderberg Group meeting in Chantilly? Your Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton!," states the blog. "They really met and talked, in private, Thursday night. And really, it sounds like they did this at that creepy Bilderberg Group meeting, which is happening now, and which is so secret that nobody will admit they’re going, even though everybody who is anybody goes to Bilderberg."
To have the potential future President and Vice-President of America attend a conference that debunkers have dismissed as a mere talking shop for old white men once again underscores the real influence that Bilderberg enjoys.
Not one U.S. corporate media outlet has made the connection between the location of the Bilderberg Group conference this year and Obama and Hillary’s decision to venture out to Chantilly for their confidential "tet a tet".
Not one U.S. corporate media outlet has yet uttered one word about 125 of the world’s most influential power brokers meeting behind closed doors to discuss the future of the planet on U.S. soil - while being met by the probable future President of the United States.
Both Hillary and Obama have deep rooted connections to the Bilderberg elitists.
Bill Clinton attended the 1991 meeting in Germany shortly before becoming President and he attended again in 1999 when the conference was held in Sintra, Portugal (despite Clinton’s lie that he had not attended in 15 years).
As we reported last month, Bilderberg luminary and top corporate elitist James A. Johnson will select Democratic candidate Barack Obama’s running mate for the 2008 election and in turn potentially act as kingmaker for America’s future President.
Johnson also selected John Kerry’s running mate John Edwards in 2004 after Edwards had impressed Bilderberg elitists Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller with a speech he gave at the globalist confab in Italy that year.
Johnson, who attended last year’s Bilderberg meeting in Turkey, is a representative for Friends of Bilderberg, an offshoot group that organizes Bilderberg’s annual meeting.
Hillary and Obama’s attendance of the 2008 Bilderberg meeting, and the complete failure of the mainstream media to report on the fact, once again betrays the super-secretive nature and influential reputation that the 54-year-old organization still maintains.
The Prison-Industrial Complex and the RAVE and VICTORY Acts
As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden was responsible for the mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines passed in 1986. “The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 had forced judges to harshly sentence within a narrow range,” Zeese recounts. “So Biden knew in '86 that mandatory sentences were not needed... But he pushed for and passed mandatory sentencing anyway, because that’s what the narcs and prosecutors wanted. He held hearings at which they got opportunity to testify while opponents of mandatory minimums were kept out.”
Biden also pushed for much harsher penalties for possession, use, or sale of crack (prevalent in the ghettos) than for powder cocaine (favored by white folks). Zeese notes: "In the past year Biden has said that was a mistake based on lack of information. He said the same thing about the Iraq war approval. In that case, as in many others, he helped ITAL cause END ITSthe lack of information. As Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee he put on phony hearings where only pro-war viewpoints were heard. He would not allow testimony from weapons inspectors, former military officers opposed to the war, or foreign policy academics opposed to the war. He used the hearing to mislead his colleagues and the public."
Biden was also instrumental in creating the Office of National Office of Drug Control Policy and takes credit for coining the phrase "Drug Czar" to describe its director. He introduced the “Reducing Americans Vulnerability to Ecstasy (RAVE) Act of 2002,” which, Zeese called “an election-year bill, sloppily written and overbroad, based on exaggerated fears.” Zeese says, "Biden also beat the drug-war drum for escalating penalties for methamphetamine. He never sees drug absuse as a medical problem, only a law enforcement problem. His heart is always with the cops and prosecutors.”
Zeese is dismayed by the prospect of Biden "taking the law enforcement line in an Obama White House, warning the young president, 'Be careful, remember, you smoked pot and used cocaine, you have to be tough on drugs.'
Zeese also sees Biden pressuring Obama on behalf of his longtime corporate sponsors. “It’s fitting that the Senator from Delaware, the foundation of corporate government, was the biggest cheerleader for a bankruptcy bill that protects the credit-card issuers instead of consumers. He was always a spokesman for MBNA [Maryland Bank North America] in the Senate and now his son is a lobbyist for them... He wants to give the internet over to the telecom industry --the same industry he protected with immunity for illegal wiretapping of Americans. This is consistent with his views on civil liberties. He has voted for every version of the Patriot Act.”
What does Zeese make of Biden calling for an end to the cocaine rock/powder sentencing disparity? “Election-year recognition of the importance of African Americans in the Democratic Party primary... Moving away from his sponsorship of this horrendously racially unfair law was essential to a presidential campaign, so he signed onto a bill that went nowhere.” And look where it got him —-the Democratic vice-presidential nomination.
Biden has sponsored more damaging drug war legislation than any Democrat in Congress. Hate the way federal prosecutors use RICO laws to take aim at drug offenders? Thank Biden. How about the abomination that is federal asset forfeiture laws? Thank Biden. Think federal prosecutors have too much power in drug cases? Thank Biden. Think the title of a “Drug Czar” is sanctimonious and silly? Thank Biden, who helped create the position (and still considers it an accomplishment worth boasting about). Tired of the ridiculous steroids hearings in Congress? Thank Biden, who led the effort to make steroids a Schedule 3 drug, and has been among the blowhardiest of the blowhards when it comes to sports and performance enhancing drugs. Biden voted in favor of using international development aid for drug control (think plan Columbia, plan Afghanistan, and other meddling anti-drug efforts that have only fostered loathing of America, backlash, and unintended consequences). Oh, and he was also the chief sponsor of 2004’s horrendous RAVE Act.
Most people know that the "drug czar" -- the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) -- is an advocate for the government position regarding the drug war. But not everyone knows that he and his office are mandated to tell lies as part of their Congressional authorization.
(12) shall ensure that no Federal funds appropriated to the Office of National Drug Control Policy shall be expended for any study or contract relating to the legalization (for a medical use or any other use) of a substance listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812) and take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance (in any form) that--
is listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812); and
has not been approved for use for medical purposes by the Food and Drug Administration;
Now, let's take as a simple example, the issue of medical marijuana. If the government finds that marijuana Has "currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States" or "accepted safety for use of the drug under medical supervision," then by law, marijuana cannot remain in Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act, which would immediately legalize it for medical purposes.
But by law, the drug czar must oppose any attempt to legalize the use (in any form).
Therefore, despite the fact that there is extensive evidence of medical marijuana's safety and effectiveness (including the fact that even the federal government supplies it to patients), and clearly the drug czar would know about all this information, he is required by law to lie about it.
The job description also means that since he must oppose any attempt to legalize, he has no choice but declare that the drug war is working, that legalization would fail, etc., regardless of any... facts.
On April 2, 2003, Congressman Ron Paul wrote a letter to the United States General Accounting Office (GAO) asking for an investigation into ONDCP lobbying activities and their dissemination of "misleading information" (a polite euphemism for "lying")
Finally, apart from considerations of whether any particular law has been violated, you have asked whether the Deputy Director's letter disseminated misleading information in connection with statements relating to the debate over legalization of marijuana. [...]
ONDCP is specifically charged with the responsibility for "taking such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use" of certain controlled substances such as marijuana --- a responsibility which logically could include the making of advocacy statements in opposition to legalization efforts. The Deputy Director's statements about marijuana are thus within the statutory role assigned to ONDCP. Given this role, we do not see a need to examine the accuracy of the Deputy Director's individual statements in detail.
Translation: Since lying is in the job description of the ONDCP, there's no point in bothering to see whether they're telling the truth.
Anti-Drug Abuse Act (1986)
he Anti-Drug Abuse Act strengthened federal efforts against drugs in many ways. One provision allows the president to increase tariffs (taxes on imports) on products from countries that do not cooperate with the U.S. efforts to stop drug imports into the United States. Another provision makes seizure of drug offenders' assets (houses, boats, cars, and money) easier.
The act also created the first laws against money laundering, or moving illegally obtained money (such as drug sale proceeds) into or out of bank accounts. In 1995 a congressional study estimated that $40 billion to $80 billion in drug profits are generated annually in the United States. Placing that money in the banking system exposes drug sellers to criminal sentences as well as forfeiture.
The part of the act with the most far-reaching impact, however, reinstated mandatory prison sentences for drug possession. Until 1986 the federal government had virtually no mandatory minimum sentences for drugs. The first federal mandatory drug sentences were passed in 1951 and imposed a two-year minimum sentence for first-time possession and a five-year sentence for trafficking. But those mandatory minimums were largely repealed in the Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970.
In the 1986 act, Congress reinstated mandatory prison terms by defining the amounts of various drugs that it believed would be in the hands of drug "kingpins," or high-level dealers. Those amounts include 1,000 grams of heroin or 5,000 grams of powder cocaine. Offenders possessing, with intent to distribute, these "kingpin" amounts face a minimum ten-year prison sentence. Offenders possessing smaller amounts that would generally be possessed by "mid-level dealers"—such as 100 grams of heroin or 500 grams of powder cocaine—face a minimum five-year sentence.
Distinctions in Minimum Sentencing
More significantly, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act created distinctions in minimum sentencing between offenders who possess powder cocaine and those who possess crack cocaine. For crack cocaine, Congress departed from its "kingpin" and "mid-level dealer" categories and simply divided the amounts necessary for powder-cocaine sentences by 100. Thus 50 grams of crack, instead of 5,000 grams of powder cocaine, merit a ten-year minimum sentence, and 5 grams of crack, rather than 500 grams of powder, trigger a five-year sentence. Trafficking in 50 grams of powder cocaine carries no mandatory sentence.
Congress justified this 100-to-1 sentencing disparity by stressing the serious social harms with which crack use was associated. Although crack and powder cocaine are the same chemical substance, crack sells more cheaply on the street and can be smoked, which induces a briefer, more intense intoxicating effect. It came into widespread use only in the mid-1980s and was associated with violent street crime. In the summer and fall of 1986, press reports sparked growing popular and congressional concern about a crack "epidemic."
In an effort to respond to this concern before the November congressional elections, legislators introduced a number of bills to toughen penalties for crack dealing. Less than two months before the election, President Ronald Reagan introduced a proposal with a 20-to-1 powder/crack ratio. House Democrats then proposed a 50-to-1 ratio, and Senate Democrats followed with a proposal that prevailed, a 100-to-1 ratio between the amounts of powder and crack cocaine required for mandatory minimum sentences.
Racial Issues
The sentencing distinction between crack and powder cocaine has been controversial because of its disparate racial impact. Most offenders sentenced under the crack cocaine provisions are African-American, whereas white offenders make up a much higher portion of those convicted for powder cocaine offenses. Courts have rejected arguments that the different penalties are unconstitutional because minorities typically receive harsher sentences under the statute. Congress has rejected a recommendation by the U.S. Sentencing Commission to reduce the disparity between powder and crack cocaine sentences.
Although many media reports and images at the time of the act emphasized the spread of crack cocaine among inner-city minority communities, it is not clear that Congress foresaw the disparate racial impact these sentencing changes would have. Fully half of the African-American representatives in Congress voted for the act, many of them emphasizing the harm that crack use was causing to black communities. Regardless of Congress's original intent, years of evidence showing that minorities receive much harsher sentences than whites for cocaine offenses because of the powder/crack distinction has led to no serious effort to change the law. Mandatory minimum sentences appear to be a fixture of American drug policy for the foreseeable future.
The 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act marked a profound shift not only in America's drug-control policy but also in the workings of the criminal justice system. It established the bulk of drug-related mandatory minimums, including the five- and 10-year mandatory minimums for drug distribution or importation, tied to the quantity of any "mixture or substance" containing a "detectable amount" of the prohibited drugs most frequently used today. More importantly, these mandatory sentences completed the transfer of sentencing power from federal judges to prosecutors.
Although the U.S. Sentencing Commission was busy working on federal sentencing guidelines for all crimes, there was not a word of discussion in either the House or the Senate of any potential inconsistency or overlap between the new drug-related mandatory laws and the guideline system that Congress had set in motion just two years earlier. Crack cocaine and Len Bias Instead, unprecedented media attention on drugs, bad timing, and tragedy appeared to be driving the drug bill. University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias, 22, had just been drafted by the Boston Celtics and was a local hero. On June 17, 1986, Bias attended a ceremony in Boston to sign a contract with the Celtics. Two days later he died of heart failure, allegedly caused by an accidental cocaine overdose.
Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill (D-Mass.) returned to Boston for the Fourth of July congressional recess and everyone seemed to be talking about the death of the Celtics' first-round draft pick. As fears of crack cocaine swept the nation, O'Neill drove Congress into action. The 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act debate was likened to a poker game, with members of Congress upping the ante (and the sentences) for drug offenses. Thoughts of sentencing uniformity and the integrity of the guideline system were quickly eclipsed by the day's headlines. Rep. Robert Dornan (R-Calif.) explained, "I think it comes down to one young man not dying in vain."14
As President and Mrs. Reagan were calling for tough new drug-control laws, Congress rushed to provide them - within a month, the legislation was drafted. Only 16 Congressmen voted against the bill, which passed the Senate by a voice vote. President Reagan signed the final version of the bill on October 27, 1986, just a week before Election Day. By 1987, the U.S. Sentencing Commission had completed its work on the federal sentencing guidelines. Because of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, the mandatory minimums became "anchors" to set the drug sentencing ranges - but Congress created more mandatory minimums. The Omnibus Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 targeted different drug offenses. At one end of the drug distribution chain, Congress created a mandatory minimum of five years for simple possession of more than five grams of "crack" cocaine. Simple possession of any amount of other drugs - including powder cocaine and heroin, or 4.9 grams of crack - remained a misdemeanor with a mandatory 15-day sentence required only for a second offense. At the other end, Congress doubled the existing 10-year mandatory minimum for anyone who engages in a continuing criminal enterprise (CCE), requiring a minimum 20-year sentence in such cases.
The most significant provision of the 1988 Act, however, was a change in the drug conspiracy penalties. This change increased the potential that the applicable penalties could apply equally to the major dealer and the mid-or low-level participant. Therefore, if a woman tells an undercover federal agent where to buy some LSD, and the agent buys some LSD from a person who possessed five grams of LSD, the woman, as a "conspirator," faces the same mandatory minimum as the person who actually possesses the LSD.
If federal prosecutors had any questions about their role in the war on drugs, the infamous "Thornburgh memorandum" answered them in 1989. Written by the U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, the memo required them to charge to the fullest extent of the law "the most serious readily provable offense or offenses consistent with the defendant's conduct." This greatly exacerbated the effects of mandatory sentences by insuring federal prisons would be packed with drug offenders.
The purpose of the bill is "To combat narco-terrorism, to dismantle narco-terrorist criminal enterprises, to disrupt narco-terrorist financing and money laundering schemes, to enact national drug sentencing reform, to prevent drug trafficking to children, to deter drug-related violence, to provide law enforcement with the tools needed to win the war against narco-terrorists and major drug traffickers, and for other purposes." [3]
On Thursday (April 10, 2003) the Senate and House passed [2] the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act (formerly known as the RAVE Act) as an attachment to the child abduction-related Amber Alert Bill. The language of the original act was changed slightly before the bill was passed without public hearing, debate or a vote.
The stated purpose of the Act was: "A bill to prohibit an individual from knowingly opening, maintaining, managing, controlling, renting, leasing, making available for use, or profiting from any place for the purpose of manufacturing, distributing, or using any controlled substance, and for other purpose."[2]
The Act would have modified section 416(a) of the Controlled Substances Act (codified at United States Code, 21 U.S.C.§ 856(a) to expand the section regarding "Establishment of manufacturing operations", which previously outlawed maintaining, managing or owning any place used to manufacture, distribute or use drugs to include temporary or permanent uses of the premises.[2]
The Act also would have created a civil penalty of $250,000 or "2 times the gross receipts, either known or estimated, that were derived from each violation that is attributable to the person.", whichever was greater.[2] Additionally, the Act recommended that the United States Sentencing Commission reconsider the then-current Federal sentencing guidelines with respect to offenses involving Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid, commonly known as the date rape drug.[2]
The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners.
Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.
Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences.
The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, according to data maintained by the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College London.
China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison. (That number excludes hundreds of thousands of people held in administrative detention, most of them in China's extrajudicial system of re-education through labor, which often singles out political activists who have not committed crimes.)
The raw material of the prison-industrial complex is its inmates: the poor, the homeless, and the mentally ill; drug dealers, drug addicts, alcoholics, and a wide assortment of violent sociopaths. About 70 percent of the prison inmates in the United States are illiterate. Perhaps 200,000 of the country's inmates suffer from a serious mental illness. A generation ago such people were handled primarily by the mental-health, not the criminal-justice, system. Sixty to 80 percent of the American inmate population has a history of substance abuse. Meanwhile, the number of drug-treatment slots in American prisons has declined by more than half since 1993. Drug treatment is now available to just one in ten of the inmates who need it. Among those arrested for violent crimes, the proportion who are African-American men has changed little over the past twenty years. Among those arrested for drug crimes, the proportion who are African-American men has tripled. Although the prevalence of illegal drug use among white men is approximately the same as that among black men, black men are five times as likely to be arrested for a drug offense. As a result, about half the inmates in the United States are African-American. One out of every fourteen black men is now in prison or jail. One out of every four black men is likely to be imprisoned at some point during his lifetime. The number of women sentenced to a year or more of prison has grown twelvefold since 1970. Of the 80,000 women now imprisoned, about 70 percent are nonviolent offenders. About 75 percent have children.
The prison-industrial complex is not only a set of interest groups and institutions. It is also a state of mind. The lure of big money is corrupting the nation's criminal-justice system, replacing notions of public service with a drive for higher profits. The eagerness of elected officials to pass "tough-on-crime" legislation—combined with their unwillingness to disclose the true costs of these laws—has encouraged all sorts of financial improprieties. The inner workings of the prison-industrial complex can be observed in the state of New York, where the prison boom started, transforming the economy of an entire region; in Texas and Tennessee, where private prison companies have thrived; and in California, where the correctional trends of the past two decades have converged and reached extremes. In the realm of psychology a complex is an overreaction to some perceived threat. Eisenhower no doubt had that meaning in mind when, during his farewell address, he urged the nation to resist "a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties."
While I continue discovery efforts in my attempt to outline 10 Real Reasons why President Elect Barack Obama poses a clear and present danger to the peace and security of the United States, I thought it prudent to offer a more diverse series of postings. In this first installment of a series exploring the privatization of the military and law enforcement, the implications of which will be explored later, I offer this explosive lecture by Jeremy Scahill, of the Nation magazine and author of Blackwater; the Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
More Information Available at blackwaterbook.com Special Thanks to Kurt G. Johnson
"The one thing I'm sure of is, events will test (Barak Obama). … There will be coups. … There will be genocide. … There will be terrorism."
Richard Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations
In the past century, the United States has witnessed a new branch of the government gestate and mature. In addition to the legislative, judicial, and executive, we now boast a policy production branch, separate from the legislature. Commonly called Think Tanks, a vast infrastructure of councils and advisory boards now directly authors the vast majority of policy presented to and enacted by congress.
Among think tanks, none dominates American Foreign Policy like the monolithic Council on Foreign Relations. Notable members since its inception include: Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Colon Powell, Al Gore, John Kerry, John Rockefeller, David Rockefeller, Nelson Rockefeller, Alan Greenspan, Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinsk, Madeline Albright,and Angelina Jolie.
The C.F.R.'s Corporate membership includes Dubai's Halliburton, British Petroleum, Dutch Royal Shell, Exxon Mobile, General Electric, Chevron, Lockheed Martin, Merck Pharmaceuticals, News Corp, Bloomberg, IBM, Time Warner, and JP Morgan/ Chase Manhattan among many others.
These individuals and organizations, meet together in private to author legislation, launch media initiatives (G.E. and News Corp. own NBC and Fox, respectively), and literally plan the future livelihood of the American People, with NO accountability, transparency, or oversight.
These same people and policies brought you the Mujaheddin(a.k.a Al Qaeda), the Iran Contras, the terrorists wars in Nicaragua, Cuba, El Salvador, and Columbia, the Iraq Wars (I & II), and the wars in Afghanistan, (the Soviet Occupation, in response to American Foreign Policy, and the Coalition Occupation, as implementation of American Foreign Policy) and other unspeakable things.
Obama's mentor and adviser Zbignew Brezinski, served as Carter's Foreign Policy Adviser, and sat on the C.F.R. for decades. His policies armed, funded, and trained the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan, and led DIRECTLY to the attacks of September 2001.
The Council, which is based in New York, established satellite councils around the country. One was the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, established 1922, now called the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. One, now prominent member of the group is the future First Lady, Michelle Obama.
The C.F.R. is just one of many organizations which have recklessly pursued globalization and standardization at all costs. They've supported every Free Trade agreement ever passed by our government, and even authored some, resulting in an economic collapse not seen since the 1930s. Watch Prominent C.F.R. member David Rockefeller question former C.F.R. Director Dick Cheney, about trade agreements:
This council has endorsed and guided the direction of our society for decades, and Obama stands poised to surround himself with its members and operatives. A list of likely C.F.R. appointments by Obama, compiled by acclaimed British journalist Steve Watson, include
As the Bush Administration leaves the White House, it leaves behind not only an economy in tatters and an ongoing Global War, but also a legal infrastructure designed to empower a Unitary Executive. (PATRIOT 1, PATRIOT 2, The Military Commissions Act, PDD 51, many executive orders and signing statements) Will Obama set about dismantling this misplaced power and restore the constitutional balance of our government? I doubt it, and here are ten reasons you should too.
10. He Caves.
"I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses." Concerning retroactive immunity granted to telecommunication multi-national corporations by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008. From a statement given June 20, 2008.
Despite voting for an amendment to remove Telecom Immunity on July 9, 2008 (Dodd Amdt. No. 5064) Obama voted alongside Senators Rockefeller, Graham, Hatch, Dole, Leiberman to pass the bill 68-29 (H.R. 6304), immunity intact, on the same day, July 9, 2008. Both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden voted against it, principally because of the immunity provisions. For those of you not aware of the consequences of this bill, a brief recap:
"The phone company whose service you employ was involved in passing your personal data, without your consent, to federal agencies, without a warrant. At the time, the legality of the federal data-mining efforts was unclear, but several civil suits were underway in defense of your Constitutional right to privacy in your papers and effects. Obama pledged to defend those rights, then abandoned that pledge for a politically expedient poll-boost. After Obama voted in favor of the immunity, the civil litigation already filed against the Telecoms by the People of the United States was summarily dismissed and future litigation was rendered impossible."
But it gets worse, in October 2008, ABC News, along with the Financial Times of London and most other major outlets reported the account of two NSA linguists who said that under the guise of FISA they routinely spied on American Armed Service Personnel by listening to private conversations with loved ones stateside, conversations between spouses, parents, and children our men in women in uniform may never see again. These conversations included pillow talk and, in some cases even phone sex. It was then reported that NSA linguists would on occasion pass around salacious conversations between Americans in a voyeuristic or mocking manner. Senator Rockefeller (D-Va), who voted for the 2008 FISA revisions called the revelations "extremely disturbing," despite the fact that congressmen and women in both the house and senate had delivered warnings about just such a scenario on the floors of the bicameral legislature.
9. American Monarchy or Its all in the Family
For the past 20 years (1988-2008) the office of the Presidency has been held by members of 2, count 'em, nuclear families. If you include the office of the Vice Presidency, those two families have ruled for 28 consecutive years, and nearly sneaked in another 4. (Remember all that Hillary for V.P. clamor) If we're factoring the time individuals have spent in the white house as we examine the diversity of the executive branch, it seems only fair that we add the distinguished career of Richard Bruce Cheney to the pot. Cheney entered the White House as a staff assistant in 1971, and became Deputy Assistant to President Gerald Ford in 1974. From 1975-77 he served as White House Chief of Staff. Cheney then wheeled over to congress in 1978, untill he returned to the White House, serving the administration of George Herbert Walker Bush as Secretary of Defense from 1989 through 1993. When Cheney once again leaves the White House in January 2009, he will have served within its walls for a total of 21 years.
Its pretty impressive when you think about it; for the past thirty years the genetic diversity of the occupants of the White House has mimicked that of critically endangered cheetah populations.
Obama's ethnicity is ground-breaking for a Chief Executive. With a father from Kenya and a mother from rural Kansas. You might easily assume his ancestry was similarly ground-breaking. But, alarmingly, it is not. Now, in fairness this may be a simple coincidence, but did you know that Barak H. Obama is a cousin of Richard Bruce Cheney? OK, a distant cousin. Obama and Cheney are descended from Mareen and Susannah Duvall, French immigrants who arrived in Maryland in 1650. Big Deal, Duvall has thousands of descendants, including John Miles Duvall, a revolutionary war veteran who turned sea merchant before his death at the hands of pirates in 1787. Also Gabriele Duvall, one of the first Supreme Court Justices. Obama and Cheney are ninth cousins once removed.
Alone, that fact could be dismissed as a quirk of the 'melting pot'. Obama has a still more interesting pair of ancestors, Samuel Hinckley and Sarah Soole Hinckley. The Hinckleys sailed to Massachusetts in 1634 aboard the Hercules of Sandwich. Their son, Thomas, became governor of the Plymouth colony. (The one with the rock, you know?) Their descendants include Frances Louise Tracy, the wife of J. P. Morgan(a.k.a. the Bank), their son John Pierpont Morgan Jr who was also a prominent banker, Dorothy Walker, the wife of Senator Prescott Sheldon Bush, and their son George Herbert Walker Bush, a former President, and his son George Walker Bush, the current President. George H.W. Bush and Obama are 10th cousins once removed. Barak H. Obama and George W. Bush are 11th cousins.
This sort of thing isn't unheard of. John Kerry and George W. were 16th cousins three times removed. Margaret De Clare, born in Ireland in 1281 a.d. originated a bloodline that includes Hillary Rodham Clinton, George W. Bush, and Queen Elizabeth II. Obama's relations could be simple coincidence. But its astronomically unlikely.
Because Obama's father was from Kenya, all of these early American relations are on Obama's mother's side. Barak is half as likely as an average American Citizen to be related to a President, any President. Obama's mother Stanley Ann Dunham is a relative of Cheney, Bush 1, Bush 2, and J.P. Morgan.
As Bush departs and his cousin takes over, we can only hope Obama doesn't share his traditional family values.
8. "The Test"
Occasionally politicians and intelligence agencies tap into something akin to precognition. Warnings from foreign and national intelligence agencies, and rhetoric about the need for a "new pearl harbor" published by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld preceded the attacks of 9/11/01. In this context, its important to understand the magnitude and implications of Joe Biden's statement during the campaign:
“Mark my words, it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”
Biden's certainty is absolute. He refers to a generated crisis,(as in planned, constructed, or manufactured) and provides a specific time-table. Republican critics leaped on Biden's words, questioning the origins of the assumed impending crisis, and focusing on how McCain might handle or stare down such a crisis. Or Something. This from Rudy Giuliani during a FOX news interview with Greta Van Susteren:
"This is a very extraordinary statement. He actually says, "Mark my words, there will be some terrible international incident." He says he can think of five or six places it can come, and then he mentions the Middle East and Russia. He only mentions two of them. And he also then suggests that people won't be pleased with Barack Obama and people should stick with him. So this is a very big thought that he has, and I think he should explain what he's talking about.But the reality is that if he has this kind of concern, that people are going to test Barack Obama's mettle, maybe he was right in the first place when he said that Barack Obama isn't ready to be commander in chief at this stage of his career."
Old Guard Democrats sprung to Biden's defense. Former Secratary of State and Obama Foreign Policy Advisor Madeline Albright appeared on CNN. When CNN's Roberts offered, "What did you think about what Senator Biden said?" Albright replied,
"Well, I think it’s just a statement of fact, frankly, and in my book, I talk about the fact that there are a lot of big issues out there, but that also something unexpected – you always have to be prepared for that."
The Los Angeles Times reported the concerns of European intelligence officials, and the challenge Obama will face in the form of a "shadow war against stateless networks of Islamic extremists." The paper then reinforced Biden's prediction.
"Terrorism greeted the previous two presidents early in their terms. President Clinton faced the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and President Bush the world-changing attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. 'I fear Al Qaeda could try to test Obama,' said a top Italian anti-terrorism official, who asked not to be identified because of the issue's sensitivity. A weaker Al Qaeda, tighter U.S. borders and the apparent lack of U.S. support networks make a new strike on American soil unlikely, though not impossible, according to Western anti-terrorism officials. Instead, the foremost possible scenario is an attack on U.S. targets in Europe similar to the alleged plot against American troops in Germany last year and transatlantic flights from London in 2006."
Prophets? No. Insiders all, and they indeed seemed certain of the uncertain. Less than 24 hours after the news of Barak Obama's election, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threatened to place "Iskander" missiles near the Polish city of Kaliningrad and radar stations with the capacity to "stun" American radar in the Czech Republic, in response to the deployment of American anti-missile system in Europe. The eastern-European American missile defense system, pushed aggressively by the Bush administration, is widely seen in Europe as a first-strike nuclear arsenal to intimidate Iran, Russia, and China.
“The announcement is mainly a way of putting pressure on and testing Barack Obama,” Antonio Missiroli, European expert on international security, said. It is, in other words, a bargaining chip Moscow thinks it can use, he said.
“Instead of emphasizing the positive elements of Obama's election - that marks the end of the Bush 'era' - he indulged in Cold War rhetoric and threats,” Missiroli, Director of Studies of the Belgian-based European Policy Centre.
This is senseless provocation firstly aimed at strengthening confrontation between Russia and West, Pavel Felgengauer, a Russian military expert told TrendNews by telephone from Moscow.
Could this be the first ominous beat of the war drums awaiting us all in January? Will we past the test? or will he?
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