northcom, 9/11, biometrics & secession

northcom: constitution not important
from rogue government: The United States government is now actively directing the attention of the U.S. military towards the American people. Using the phony war on terror, the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) are creating a militarized control grid specifically to enslave the American people.

cia withheld tapes from 9/11 commission
from thinkprogess: The New York Times reports that a “review of classified documents by former members of the Sept. 11 commission shows that the panel made repeated and detailed requests to the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 and 2004 for documents and other information about” the interrogation of terrorist suspects... On Wednesday, the Times revealed that at least four top White House lawyers, including Harriet Miers and Alberto Gonzales, had discussed with the CIA whether or not to destroy the tapes.

fbi prepares vast biometrics database
from cryptogon: Yes, They want to scan and track you at all times, but I almost fell out of my chair when I read this part: "The FBI is building its system according to standards shared by Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand." Ok, let me get this straight: The countries that run ECHELON, the largest civilian communications surveillance program in the world, have developed unified standards for biometric identification.

lakota indians withdraw from US treaties
from afp: The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday. "We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference.

US: suspect is kin to 9/11 hijacker

from ap: A Saudi terrorism suspect facing possible charges before a military tribunal at Guantanamo has been identified as a brother-in-law of one of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza al-Darbi, who is accused of helping to organize an al-Qaida plot to attack a ship, is a brother-in-law of Khalid al-Mihdhar, a Saudi who was one of the hijackers who crashed a plane into the Pentagon, the military said in a statement late Friday.

Al-Darbi, 32, faces possible charges that include conspiracy and providing support to terrorism and could be sentenced to up to life in prison if convicted by the military court at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.

hoover: suspend habeas corpus & imprison thousands

from raw story: According to a newly declassified document, the New York Times reports, a plan by former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover sought to suspend habeas corpus during wartime, with the intention of imprisoning thousands of Americans indefinitely.

Hoover's plan was submitted to the White House twelve days after the start of the Korean War. Under the plan, approximately 12,000 people deemed as "potentially dangerous" to national security, 97% of whom were American citizens, would have been rounded up and sent to military prisons without due process.

media monarchy episode055

episode055 of media monarchy features clashes in new orleans & homeland stupidity satellites, bush/clinton crime family, fox explosions & the white house fire, world stocks plummet & peter power flees, music by kronos quartet and tons more...

episode055 - december 21, 2007 download/stream/subscribe

media monarchy is originally broadcast on the portland radio authority every friday at 10am pacific/1pm eastern and can also be heard on the revere radio network every monday at 2pm pacific/5pm eastern...

plus, you can always get podcasts of previous episodes thanks to radio4all.net & archive.org

dhs finalizing plans for domestic spy satellite program

congress has not been updated since civil liberties concerns delayed satellite spying

from raw story: A plan to dramatically widen US law enforcement agencies' access to data from powerful spy satellites is moving toward implementation, as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff expects to finalize a charter for the program this week, according to a new report.

Chertoff insists the scheme to turn spy satellites -- that were originally designed for foreign surveillance -- on Americans is legal, although a House committee that would approve the program has not been updated on the program for three months.

"We still haven't seen the legal framework we requested or the standard operation procedures on how the NAO will actually be run," House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie G. Thompson tells the Wall Street Journal. Thompson was referring to the National Applications Office -- a new DHS subset that would coordinate access to spy-satellite data for non-military domestic agencies, including law enforcement.

related: chertoff attacks bill of rights, corporate media ignores story

tancredo quits & cambodia kissinger cozy with mccain

tancredo quits presidential race
from press tv: US Republican Tom Tancredo has pulled of the presidential race and thrown his support behind his fellow party member Mitt Romney. The Colorado Republican, who built his long shot presidential campaign on opposition to illegal immigration, languished at the bottom of a big Republican presidential field most of the year.

in a rare move, kissinger endorses mccain
from new york sun: Making a rare foray into primary politics, Henry Kissinger, 84, who served as secretary of state under Presidents Ford and Nixon, is saying Senator McCain is the best person to serve as president at a dangerous time for America and the world... "I tremendously admire his service to the nation," Mr. Kissinger said. "I believe that he's the best candidate to serve our nation in an extremely difficult and complicated period." He added that he was "doing something that I am not comfortable with" in making an endorsement, but that Mr. McCain and the nation deserved it.

'charlie wilson's war' helped give us 9/11

'war' isn't pretty, woman
from news & observer: The movie pretty much cops out at the end by glossing over that Wilson's noble, patriotic actions may have contributed to the 9/11 attacks down the line. This was brought to full attention in Sorkin's original draft of the script, but the real Herring reportedly threatened legal action if that draft was produced. So not only is Roberts annoying in the movie, but the person she plays is a killjoy as well.

afghanistand-up
from new york post: A feel-good comedy about a covert US effort to fund resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? What will Hollywood think of next? ... What a timid wimp-out for the liberal stars and filmmakers. Many of the US-funded weapons ended up in the hands of the Taliban - and this more or less directly led to 9/11 and the current war in Iraq.

'war' stops 30 minutes shy of greatness
from houston chronicle: But when it ends, with the Afghan rebels triumphant over their Communist oppressors and Wilson being lauded by the intelligence community for his backdoor efforts pushing the largest covert operation in U.S. history, the film leaves a whopper of an issue unexplored. In brief: 9/11. What happened next in Afghanistan. How the United States lost hold. How the Taliban took power. How that country, those freedom fighters, turned our guns and good will against us after American money backed them in their fight against the Soviets.

this 'war' is a winner
from popmatters: And Wilson may have been, in real life, a cad of unconscionable proportions, but the message this movie delivers is loud and crystal clear - the US funded covert war against the Soviets in the early ‘80s led directly to the rise of the Taliban, the establishment of Al-Qaeda, and the events of 9/11.

hillary the hawk & billy's secret papers

hillary the hawk
from counterpunch: When Senator Hillary Clinton voted on October 11, 2002, to turn over to President George W. Bush the power that the Constitution vested in her and congressional colleagues to decide whether or not to wage war - or, quoting House Joint Resolution 114, whether an attack on Iraq was "necessary and appropriate" - she appeared to have a conflict of interest:

Her husband, Bill, was of course the former chief of the executive branch. And during her eight years as first lady, Mrs. Clinton never objected to Bill's eight wars, attacks, or interventions: in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Colombia, Haiti, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, and Yugoslavia. He bombed Iraq in 1993 soon after taking office, again in 1996, and from 1998 till he left office. For a time, he was dropping bombs on Iraqis and Yugoslavs simultaneously in 1999.

None of those acts of war were authorized by Congress.

2,600 pages of clinton papers withheld
from monsters & critics: The National Archives is withholding from the public about 2,600 pages of records at President Clinton's direction, despite a public assurance by one of his top aides last month that Mr. Clinton "has not blocked the release of a single document."

The 2,600 pages, stored at Mr. Clinton's library in Arkansas, contained "confidential advice" and, therefore, "closed" under the Presidential Records Act, an Archives spokeswoman, Susan Cooper, told The New York Sun yesterday.

Sharon Fawcett, an overseer of the library, said in a recent interview that the records were withheld in accordance with a letter Mr. Clinton wrote in 1994 exercising his right to hold back certain types of files and another letter in 2002 about narrowing the scope of his earlier instructions.

Fawcett confirmed to the Sun Clinton had "total control" of the withholding of the papers.

mpaa rejects torture 'taxi' documentary poster

from thinkprogess: Alex Gibney’s new critically-acclaimed documentary Taxi to the Dark Side follows the path of Afghan taxi driver Dilawar, who was innocent of any terrorist ties but still “tortured to death by interrogators in the U.S. prison at Bagram Air Base.” It also examines the Bush administration’s torture practices at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has rejected Taxi’s poster, displayed to the right, as being “not suitable for all audiences.” The poster for the film simply shows two soldiers walking away from the camera, holding a hooded detainee between them. Variety notes that the military has also tried to censor the photo on the poster:

The “Taxi” ad art is actually an amalgam of two pictures. The first, taken by Corbis photographer Shaun Schwarz, features the hooded prisoner and one soldier. Another military figure was added on the left. Ironically, the original Schwarz photo was censored by the military, which erased his camera’s memory. The photographer eventually retrieved the image from his hard drive.

According to ThinkFilm, which produced the documentary, the MPAA objected to the “image of the hood.” Last year, the MPAA also censored the poster for the documentary The Road to Guantanamo, because it showed a detainee “hanging by his handcuffed wrists, with a burlap sack over his head and a blindfold tied around the hood.”

As Gibney notes, Taxi is “not a horror film.” It is “a documentary and that image is a documentary image.” ThinkFilm plans to appeal the MPAA’s ruling.

congress slams the 2nd amendment

from afp: The US Congress has approved the first major gun control legislation in more than a decade, broadening background checks for gun buyers in the wake of a deadly campus shooting earlier this year by a mentally ill student.

The legislation approved Wednesday by the Senate provides government funds to improve the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), the main way gun purchases are monitored in America.

police & protesters clash in new orleans

from usa today: There is a protest underway at New Orleans City Hall as the City Council decides whether to demolish 4,500 public housing units damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

The AP says police have used stun guns and chemical spray to repel protesters, and that "a scuffle" occurred in the City Council chambers. The New Orleans Times-Picayune is live-blogging developments and has published a photo gallery.

The vote is a key moment in a long fight between local activists and preservationists who want the housing renovated, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which seeks demolition. USA TODAY published a feature on the dispute Dec. 13.

video: police taze & chem spray protesters
from raw story: Violence broke out in New Orleans on Thursday after police shut the gates of City Hall against protesters who were attempting to enter a City Council meeting that was expected to approve the demolition of 4500 units of public housing. When about 100 protesters broke through, police began using pepper spray and tasers and even engaging in fistfights with the demonstrators.

ny emergency radio network fails first major test

from the inquirer: A $2 billion installed radio network intended to connect emergency responders throughout the New York state failed its first major test.

This all sounds a lot like 9/11's radio fiasco shown in Robert Greenwald's film about how poorly Motorola's radios worked during the infamous Twin Towers disaster in New York City.

Think light bulb turning on over the heads of Buffalo NY city fathers. They quickly chose to opt out of the system following what officials said were problems so severe that radios did not work in about half of the state's second largest city.

Buffalo Fire Commissioner Michel Lombardo said, "West of the centre of the city we had zero reception.” In the areas that did receive reception," he added, "it sounded like a guy was talking in a tin can." Buffalo now intends to upgrade its own radio system, Lombardo said.

M/A-Com, a division of Tyco International - $34 billion in revenue, 118,000 employee - was awarded the contract to build an improved network of wireless transmission towers to allow the state's police, fire and emergency personnel to communicate.

Michael A. L. Balboni, NY state deputy secretary for public safety, said: "If those glitches are still present when the system is presented to the state for acceptance and payment, that will be a very large concern."

Michael R. Summers, president of the union representing sheriff's deputies in Erie County, was also critical of the new system. "There were spots where we could not communicate with each other," he said. "We would move 10 feet up the road, and it would work."

M/A-Com officials claimed they were working to address the problems.

carlyle group buys the magna carta for $21m

this reminds me of monty burns telling a judge that he'll "take that statue of justice, too." or, as existentialist cowboy points out in a fantastic article, it's like "anton lavey buying the gutenberg bible."

from deutsche presse-agentur: A rare, 700-year-old copy of the Magna Carta sold late Tuesday in New York for 21 million dollars, Sotheby's auction house said.

Handwritten in 1297, the document is one of only about 20 known copies and the only one ever to come under the hammer at auction. All the others are owned by public entities.

It was owned for more than 20 years by the Perot Foundation, a charity founded by Texas billionaire Ross Perot, a computer services tycoon who ran as an independent presidential candidate in 1992 and 1996. The revenue from the sale is to support the foundation's charitable work.

The Magna Carta was first signed in 1215 to enshrine the rights of English nobles with King John. The charter remains the foundation of Britain's constitution.

The auction Magna Carta was a revision signed by English King Edward I...

David Rubenstein, founder of the Carlyle Group, speaks to the press while standing in front of the Magna Carta after he purchased it for 21,321,000 US Dollars, during the auction of the famous document at Sotheby's in New York, New York, USA, 18 December 2007. The document is a 1297 charter issued by King Edward I that outlined the rights of man in English law and is one of less than 20 surviving examples copies.

hundreds get sick from gardasil cancer vaccine

from news.com.au: More than 17 girls a week have been experiencing adverse reactions such as seizures and numbness after taking cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil since it became widely distributed in April.

But the Department of Health and Ageing, while revealing the number of reactions, is refusing to release the details of them - despite growing controversy overseas, including links to at least seven deaths.

There have been previous reports in Australia of young girls fainting, experiencing seizures, dizzy spells and paralysis, including 20 students at a Melbourne private school who reported being sick after having an injection in late May.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal that as of November 30 there have been 496 adverse reaction reports filed to the Therapeutic Goods Association (TGA).

Of those, 468 of the reported cases had the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine as the sole suspected cause.

In the US there have been reports of up to 1700 women suffering adverse reactions after being vaccinated.

update: teen illness blamed on gardasil vaccine

police brutality & torture are normal after 9/11

police brutality cases on rise since 9/11
from lew rockwell: USA Today is reporting on an increase in prosecutions of police officers for uses of "excessive force" (I'd rather drop the euphemisms and go with "beatings and tortures") or other tactics that "violate victims' civil rights" (I would have used "murder").

According to the article, "the heightened prosecutions come as the nation's largest police union fears that agencies are dropping standards to fill thousands of vacancies and 'scrimping' on training."

State control of the police-justice-law triumvirate guarantees low quality of service, high prices, inefficiency, injustice and chaos.

prof: after 9/11, we see torture as normal
from capital times: Torture has become normalized in American society post-9/11 and that is why the public is not outraged when the U.S. government does it, a Beloit College sociology professor told a Madison audience Tuesday night in the Meriter Main Gate auditorium.

Carol Wickersham, an anti-torture activist who is also a Presbyterian minister, showed a picture of actor Kiefer Sutherland, who plays a counterterrorism agent on the The Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning Fox show "24," and asked if anyone in the room knew who he was.

The group of 30, members of the Dane County chapter of the United Nations Association, was silent.

"It's Jack Bauer, the star of '24,'" she said. "'24' is one of the most popular shows on television and '24' shows torture every single show."

white house compound catches on fire

from ap: Thick black smoke billowed from a fire Wednesday on the White House compound in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

The blaze appeared to be located in Vice President Dick Cheney's suite of ceremonial offices on the second floor of the building. Cheney and President Bush were across the street in the West Wing of the White House when the blaze broke out. It appeared to be under control within an hour.

Secret Service spokesman Darrin Blackford said the Old Executive Office building was evacuated as a precaution. "Everyone has been evacuated safely," White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said. District of Columbia firefighters poured water on the blaze and moved furniture onto a balcony.

There were no reports of serious injuries, D.C. fire department spokesman Alan Etter said. One man broke a fifth-floor window to escape from the smoke and had to be rescued from the ledge, Etter said.

"We want people to rest assured that we have this under control," he said, adding that investigators were working to determine the cause of the blaze.

The Executive Office Building, a commanding structure with a granite, slate and cast iron exterior at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 17th Street, houses the Office of Management and Budget and staff of the National Security Council and other agencies.

Originally built for the State, War and Navy Departments between 1871 and 1888, the building was renamed in honor of President Dwight Eisenhower during the Clinton administration.

update: what was cheney trying to hide with that office fire?

the ron paul revolution is on!

keep your seatbelts fastened, ron paulians
from lew rockwell: After the huge Tea Party fundraising today, and all the other signs of rEVOLution, not to speak of Ron's coming success in the early caucuses and primaries, we can expect smears... the lying smears will bounce off him. The elites have never dealt with a man and a movement like this. They called Reagan the teflon candidate. Ron Paul, for reasons of reality rather than PR, will be untouchable. Neocons and all the rest, gnash your teeth but get used to it. You'll have eight years to do so.

video: a closer look at the ron paul revolution
from pbs: NOW takes a closer look at the Ron Paul Revolution. The following video is from PBS’s NOW, broadcast on November 14, 2007.

video: ron paul tv special to air in iowa

video: ron paul tea party in los angeles
from freedomcorp: Ron Paul Tea Party in Los Angeles. 12/16/07 - 1,000 Ron Paul supporters take over the Santa Monica Pier for a Tea Party L.A. style.

video: ron paul on glenn beck - complete 40min interview

video: jack cafferty covers ron paul’s money bomb on cnn
from truthnews: Jack Cafferty asks if Ron Paul can pull in $6.2 million dollars in a single day, following a $4. million a previous day, how come he's not higher in the polls?

video: ron paul on morning joe on dec18

the apostles of ron paul
from mother jones: How does a 72-year-old conservative Texas congressman become the hottest thing in online politics? Ask the techies, hippies, tax haters, and war protesters who believe that only Ron Paul can save America from itself.

austin is a stronghold for ron paul campaign
from austin american statesman: Famously, flagrantly liberal Austin has almost overnight become a crucial redoubt in a campaign to elect as president a libertarian Republican congressman from Lake Jackson. The strength of Ron Paul here is just another surprise in a campaign built almost entirely on the unexpected, delighting the candidate and confounding the experts.

update: paul raises $6 million in 24-hour effort
from ap: Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul's supporters raised over $6 million Sunday to boost the 10-term Texas congressman's campaign for the White House.

video: international ron paul support at strasbourg teaparty
from europe 4 ron paul: On December 16th, international Ron Paul Supporters gathered together to celebrate a Teaparty in front of the Parliament of Europe.

bloomberg really aims at ron paul
from free market news: Though nobody will say so, Bloomberg’s candidacy, if it comes to pass, would likely be aimed - to begin with, anyway (certainly if momentum builds) at Ron Paul. The more successful Ron Paul is, the more desperate his opponents are to stop him. Even if it means hauling in a Wall Street business mogul to spend up to $2 billion of his own funds to do so.

paul raises 5 million in 24 hours
from time: Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul's supporters raised over $5 million Sunday to boost the 10-term Texas congressman's campaign for the White House.

ron paul white house bid raises $4.5 million
from reuters: Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, an anti-war libertarian who has clashed with his rivals over Iraq, raised a record $4.5 million in a one-day Internet fund-raising event on Sunday, his campaign said in a statement.

paul raises millions in 24-hour effort
from ap: Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul's supporters were hoping Sunday for another fundraising bonanza to boost the 10-term Texas congressman's campaign for the White House.

again, ron paul supporters pour millions into campaign coffers
from monsters & critics: At the risk of being accused of fluffery or bias by Clintonistas, Oprah's Obama army, Romney and Huckabeebots, we are still obliged to report the fact that Ron Paul supporters are on their way to beating the November 5th Guy Fawkes $4.2 million dollar raise, and are at a reported $4 million currently. Fact: No other candidate on either camp has achieved this grass roots donation level from Jane and John Q. Public.

paul: americans embrace reform
from press tv: US Presidential hopeful Ron Paul says the recent increase in the number of his supporters proves that Americans are ready for reform.

ron paul beats own fundraising record
from washington post: Rep. Ron Paul, whose rock star status on the Internet has singlehandedly fueled his campaign, broke another online fundraising record. His very own.

paul: bush no authority to rule world
from press tv: Presidential hopeful Ron Paul says President Bush has started empire-building by invading Iraq and Afghanistan and beating the drums of war with Iran.

video: 'they are loyal to the party, I am loyal to the constitution'
from raw replay: CNN’s Wolf Blitzer is joined by Congressman Ron Paul ‘post’ Iowa Republican Debate... video is from CNN’s The Situation Room, broadcast on December 12, 2007.

bubba & poppy, emissaries of mass murder & misery

from truthnews: First thing president Hillary will do is send two mass murderers out to “repair the damage done to America’s reputation,” according to CNN.

And who are these two criminals? None other than president Hillary’s husband and Bush Senior. As you may recall, Bill Clinton is more or less the adopted son of the Bush crime family. It makes sense then these two criminals — guilty of together killing well over a million innocent Iraqis, 500,000 of them children — will be sent, as people around the world understand, more than the American people do, that these two guys mean business.

It is all the fault of the rogue son, Dubya, and Bill and Poppy will make it all better.

“Well, the first thing she intends to do, because you can do this without passing a bill, the first thing she intends to do is to send me and former President Bush and a number of other people around the world to tell them that America is open for business and cooperation again,” said Bubba.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

poppy bush makes final skull & bones pilgrimage?

from paul joseph watson: An 83-year-old George H. W. Bush apparently made what could be his last pilgrimage to Skull and Bones over the weekend when he purportedly paid a visit to the tomb and rekindled his loyalty with the secret society death cult for the first time in nearly 10 years.

Skull and Bones is a secret society based at Yale University which recruits just fifteen members a year. The vast majority of its members have gone on to occupy positions of high power and influence...

Bush was in New Haven this weekend to pick up an award but according to eyewitnesses who saw special furniture and tables being unloaded outside the tomb, he was also likely guest of honor for Skull and Bones.

Ivygate.com reports:

"Famously absent from Boner bashes in recent years (last appearance we can confirm was in 1998), all signs point to the 83-year-old Bush Sr. as guest of honor at the Bones' latest homoerotic leather-daddy Satan-worship, or ritualized flag-burning, or whatever strange and magical things they do in those windowless buildings on High Street. Obviously, the Bonesmen declined to comment on this story."

Of course the fact that future world leaders like to dress up like Klan members, letting fly blood-curdling screams as they slash imaginary victims' throats before kissing skulls and the fact that those same future world leaders then preside over the deaths of untold millions in brutal wars is nothing to worry about and we should all just forget about it and get back to watching America's Got Talent.

'god's basic training' coming under fire

from military.com: The warriors pose for the camera in a group shot - some holding their weapons in one hand and their holy book in another.

Elsewhere, a poster bears a quotation calling for the killing of enemy leaders and forcing the defeated people to convert.

If you think the images come from Islamic fundamentalist training camps in remote regions of the Middle East you'd be wrong.

The photo depicts Army trainees at Fort Jackson, S.C., where in addition to basic combat training recruits may also attend "God's Basic Training," while the poster -- boasting a quotation from conservative author Anne Coulter -- adorns the door of a Military Police office at Fort Riley, Kansas.

"These are startling and disgusting revelations of further unconstitutional behavior by technologically the most lethal organization ever created by humankind -- the U.S. military," said Mikey Weinstein, whose group, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, discovered the evangelical-oriented program at Fort Jackson and the Coulter poster at Fort Riley.