It appears the far left has its panties in a wad over the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act which allows the United States military to detain suspects indefinitely and without charge or trial.
Even American citizens?
YES EVEN AMERICAN CITIZENS!

What is so odd about this group of PROGRESSIVES that is headed up by Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Birgitta Jonsdottir and Jennifer Bolen, they are NORMALLY ALIGNED HOOK LINE AND SINKER with the Marxist ideology of Barack Obama.

Apparently with his latest folly (the implementation of NDAA) Obama has somehow threatened them personally enough to make them scream uncle.

Interesting how when that bombshell hits your own back yard it spurs one into action.

So this group (REVOLUTION TRUTH) is suing the United States Government to stop the implementation of the NDAA.

Well for a change GOOD FOR THEM!

Here is the story reported by Naomi Wolf
of the guardian.co.uk,
Thursday 17 May 2012 13.19 EDT

On Wednesday 16 May, at about 4pm, the republic of the United States of America was drawn back – at least for now – from a precipice that would have plunged our country into moral darkness. One brave and principled newly-appointed judge ruled against a law that would have brought the legal powers of the authorities of Guantánamo home to our own courthouses, streets and backyards.

US district judge Katherine Forrest, in New York City’s eastern district, found that section 1021 – the key section of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) – which had been rushed into law amid secrecy and in haste on New Year’s Eve 2011, bestowing on any president the power to detain US citizens indefinitely, without charge or trial, “facially unconstitutional”. Forrest concluded that the law does indeed have, as the journalists and peaceful activists who brought the lawsuit against the president and Leon Panetta have argued, a “chilling impact on first amendment rights”. Her ruling enjoins that section of the NDAA from becoming law.

In her written opinion, the judge noted that she had been persuaded by what the lead plaintiffs – who include Pulitzer prize-winner Chris Hedges of the Nation Institute, editor Jennifer Bolen of RevolutionTruth, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, co-founder of Occupy London Kai Wargalla, Days of Rage editor Alexa O’Brien, and the Icelandic parliamentarian and WikiLeaks activist Birgitta Jónsdóttir – had argued. In their testimonies (in court and by affidavit), these plaintiffs compiled a persuasive case that they had “standing” to sue because it was reasonable for them to worry that they could conceivably could be detained indefinitely under the section 1021 law because their work requires them to have contact with sources the US government might assert were “terrorists” or “associated forces” of al-Qaida.

The key claim made by the plaintiffs – of which Judge Forrest was persuaded – was that the language in section 1021 is so vague that it could sweep up anyone. The law fails to define or specify what “associated forces” or the concept of “substantial support” actually mean.

I attended the hearing as a journalist supporting the plaintiffs, providing by affidavit examples from my own experience of how the NDAA’s section 1021 had already affected my reporting. (Princeton professor Dr Cornel West and I are also standing by to become plaintiffs, if called upon, in the next round.) I was also there to read in court Birgitta Jónsdóttir’s disturbing testimony: she had been advised by her own government not to attend the hearing in person because the US government would not give Iceland a written assurance that it would not detain her under the NDAA if she did so. US federal agents have already confiscated her Twitter account and personal bank records.

The back-and-forth between Judge Forrest and Obama administration’s lawyers that goes to the heart of the judge’s ruling was stunning to behold. Forrest asked repeatedly, in a variety of different ways, for the government attorneys to give her some, any assurance that the wording of section 1021 could not be used to arrest and detain people like the plaintiffs. Finally she asked for assurance that it could not be used to sweep up a hypothetical peaceful best-selling nonfiction writer who had written a hypothetical book criticizing US foreign policy, along lines theater the Taliban might agree with. Again and again (the transcript from my notes is here), the two lawyers said directly that they could not, or would not, give her those assurances. In other words, this back-and-forth confirmed what people such as Glenn Greenwald, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, the ACLU and others have been shouting about since January: the section was knowingly written in order to give the president these powers; and his lawyers were sent into that courtroom precisely to defeat the effort to challenge them. Forrest concluded:

“At the hearing on this motion, the government was unwilling or unable to state that these plaintiffs would not be subject to indefinite detention under [section] 1021. Plaintiffs are therefore at risk of detention, of losing their liberty, potentially for many years.”

The government’s assertions become even more hellishly farcical. Forrest further observed:

“An individual could run the risk of substantially supporting or directly supporting an associated force without even being aware that he or she was doing so. In the face of what could be indeterminate military detention, due process requires more.”

This upholding of the US constitution and the rule of law is a triumphant moment, but a fragile one: Judge Forrest has asked Congress to clarify the language protecting America’s right to trial and the first amendment’s protections on speech and assembly. And now, Thursday, Representatives Adam Smith (Democrat, Washington) and Justin Amash (Republican, Michigan) have presented an amendment to Congress an amendment that does just that. Those who vote against it therefore will be voting clearly, and without any ambiguity, for stripping Americans of their constitutional rights and reducing them to the same potential status as “enemy combatants” and Guantánamo prisoners. The House thus votes for or against the power handed to the executive by the NDAA to hold any of us, anywhere, forever, for no reason. There can be no hiding from this; the lawyers defending the administration’s position made that perfectly clear.

What truly disturbed me in that courtroom was the terrible fragility of all the checks to power that are supposed to be in place to protect us against such assaults on democracy. Many senators, including my own, Chuck Schumer, had sent out letters to their own worried constituents flat-out denying our fears about what section 1021 does. No major news media organizations attended the original hearing (except Paul Harris of the Guardian and Observer). The trial and the NDAA itself have been so inadequately reported by mainstream outlets that I keep running into senior editors and lawyers who have never heard of it. I recently cornered one southern Democratic senator at an event and asked him why he had voted to pass the NDAA. He asked what my objection was.

“It allows the president to detain Americans without charge or trial,” I pointed out. His aides had assured him this was not the case, he replied. “Have you read the bill?” I asked. “It’s 1,600 pages,” he replied.

This darkness is so dangerous not least because a new Department of Homeland Security document trove, released in response to a FOIA request filed by Michael Moore and the National Lawyers’ Guild, proves in exhaustive detail that the DHS and its “fusion centers” coordinated with local police (as I argued here, to initial disbelief), the violent crackdown against Occupy last fall. You have to put these pieces of evidence together: the government cannot be trusted with powers to detain indefinitely any US citizen – even though Obama promised he would not misuse these powers – because the United States government is already coordinating a surveillance and policing war against its citizens, designed to suppress their peaceful assembly and criticism of its corporate allies.

The lawyers for the government have endless funds (our tax dollars); the plaintiffs’ lawyers all worked pro bono; the plaintiffs themselves paid their own way to make their case. Yet, by these slender means, what was essentially a coup in two paragraphs has been blocked from advancing under cover of ignorance and silence to becoming the supreme law of the land. But should our democracy hang by such a tenuous thread that it relies on the sheer luck that this case was heard by a courageous judge with a settled belief in the constitution of the United States?

Unfortunately Travon Martin has become the latest tool for the black race baiters in the states.

As I watch for instance in the video Hank Johnson (D) Georgia say “he was executed for WWB in GC “walking while black in a gated community”. Then worse the shrill clown Federicka Wilson (D) Florida saying “he was hunted down like a rabid dog”.

How do these people get elected?
This is the best of their communities to have a say so in how our government is run?
Our government is being run by slow thinking “dim witted” individuals who ramp up problems WITHOUT FACTS?

We can discuss until the cows come home the “what ifs” of this case. Bottom line Zimmerman was beat up according to an eye witness. He sustained a number of injuries as reported by a doctor. Those injuries were at the hands of Trayvon Martin according to the bruised knuckles from his autopsy.

Unfortunately for Martin HE CHOSE TO ATTACK someone with a weapon who decided to defend himself.

Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Hank Johnson, Federicka Wilson and all of the others who want to paint a glowing picture of Trayvon Martin as being a poor victim. It’s time to face the reality the real “WHAT IF” is … Trayvon should have continued to go on his way and NOT DECIDE to victimize someone armed.

Listen carefully to the Martin attorney.
It appears when all is said and done they do not want justice … they want Zimmerman convicted off murder.

One last note in this story.
FINALLY BILL O’REILLY showed a picture of Martin that WAS NOT DOCTORED for media purposes.

The following appeared in Lew Rockwell and Financial Sense on 5-16-2012

John Williams: The Real Unemployment Rate: 22% – Not 8.1%

The coming fiscal cliff: hyperinflation on track for 2014

Jim welcomes back John Williams from Shadow Government Statistics. John believes the real unemployment rate is 22%, not 8.1%, which is why it still feels like a recession. He also calculates the CPI at 6%, not 2.8%, and explains how the government manipulates the rate of inflation. Lastly, John believes the US is still on track for hyperinflation in 2014 as we near the coming fiscal cliff. Listen to the interview.

John received an A.B. in Economics, cum laude, from Dartmouth College in 1971, and was awarded a M.B.A. from Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck School of Business Administration in 1972, where he was named an Edward Tuck Scholar. During his career as a consulting economist, John has worked with individuals as well as Fortune 500 companies. Formally known as Walter J. Williams, his friends call him John. For nearly 30 years, John has been a private consulting economist and, out of necessity, had to become a specialist in government economic reporting.

JIM: Joining me on the program today is John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics.

And John, before we get into a real big issue that’s going to hit the economy January 2013, I want to talk about the front page of your website. And you have two graphs that are available publicly and one is the unemployment rate where you have U3, U6 and then SGS, which is your own. Let’s talk about those numbers, what they mean for our listeners and the differences between them. [1:11]

JOHN: Sure. I’ve been a consulting economist for 30 years. What I’ve found over the decades is that the government’s reporting has moved further and further away from common experience, and really, the average guy has got a pretty good sense of what’s going on. If you feel the economy is not as strong as the government is saying or that inflation might be higher than what they’re reporting, you’re most likely right because you’re dealing with the real world.

The numbers use to deal much closer to real world experience.

And with the unemployment number, if you, let’s say, went around the entire country and asked everyone whether he or she was unemployed, you’d get an immediate answer. Most people have a pretty strong opinion as to what’s up, they have a job; they know what’s going on. But if you put all those numbers together, you’d come up with a much higher unemployment rate than the government reports, or at least the headline government number to date. So that’s all due to definition.

In order to be counted in the headline unemployment rate – and keep in mind, the government actually publishes six levels of unemployment. The third level they call U3 is the headline number – you have to obviously be out of work and willing and able to take a job, but you have to have actively looked for work in the last four weeks. There are people who’ve stopped looking for work after a period of time when there are just no jobs to be had, yet they’d take a job if it were available, and they otherwise consider themselves unemployed. They want a job; they are willing and able to work. And again, they’d take it as soon as it was offered. If you haven’t been looking in the last four weeks, the government will count you as a discouraged worker so long as you’ve looked for work in the last year.

If you haven’t actively looked for work in the last year, they don’t count you at all.

Before 1994, anybody who was a discouraged worker, irrespective of the period of time, was counted as a discouraged worker. So that where you have the U3 unemployment rate at, I believe it’s 8.2% in March, the government’s broadest number U6 (which includes what I call the short term discouraged workers, those who have given up looking for work, but not for more than a year) and also includes people who work part-time for economic reasons (they can’t get a full-time job, they want a full-time job but you know, no full-time job is available) that’s running up somewhat over 14%.

And what I do is I add to that my estimate of the longer term discouraged workers – those who have been discouraged more than a year. That puts you up over 22%.

What happens here is the people who are unemployed roll out of the U3 level; they become discouraged because there are no jobs to be had, and so they go into the U6 level.

And after a year, they roll out of the U6 level in terms of going into another world that the government does not count. I still estimate them, so my number is broader than the government’s number. So when you see the unemployment rate dropping, yet the broader measures are rising or staying at near historic levels, you do not have an economic recovery and that’s what we’re showing. [4:26]

JIM: And John, if we go back to the beginning of the year when we were closer to 9% and we’ve seen – or let’s say the fourth quarter of last year and we’ve seen it steadily come down. But it’s been my understanding that the decline in that unemployment rate (the “U3”) that the government reports, a lot of it is discouraged workers that are no longer counted, number one. And number two, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there also a category, let’s say I’m unemployed and I get unemployment benefits for 99 weeks or whatever the timeframe is, once those 99 weeks end, aren’t I technically considered employed? [5:06]

JOHN: No. To be employed you have to have a job. What they call the Household Survey where they count the unemployed, they actually go around and survey 60,000 households or so each month. And they have a survey questionnaire that they use for determining whether people are employed or how many people in the household are unemployed or employed, but they don’t count the receipt of unemployment benefits as a factor in being defined as unemployed. So it’s separate from the jobless claims, and such now the fact that the jobless claims have come down some recently does not mean things are getting better.

What you have to keep in mind is that we have been in the most severe and most protracted economic downturn seen since the Great Depression. And this has been – the economy began to collapse in, certainly by the end of 2007 – and I mean collapse; we had a sharp decline in economic activity. And right now we are seeing nothing but stagnation or bottom bouncing at a low level of activity. So what might have been historic norms, when you were looking at much smaller recessions, don’t apply here. You have people who have been laid off, businesses that have cut to the bone wherever they can and the fact that you don’t have quite as many layoffs as you had doesn’t mean things are getting better. It just means that you have fewer people to lay off.

There are two sides to that: the one side is the jobless claims; the other side is the hiring. There are no good measures of that, but the Conference Board puts out a help-wanted index. It used to be with newspapers which were a – that was a very reliable, good indicator over time. The internet has taken over in that area and now they have what they call an online help-wanted advertising. It’s not as good a quality; it doesn’t have a history that the newspapers did. The most recent numbers, even though they are up overall, the number I would look at there is the new ads for advertising for hiring people. That actually declined in the last month and that’s not a good indicator. Everything we’re looking at here suggests we’re not seeing an economic recovery and that’s tied largely to inflation. The inflation has created an illusion here with some of the statistics. [7:26]

JIM: John, do you think this is one of the reasons when they keep doing survey after survey – and I think they just did one recently where over 80% of the country still feel we’re in a depression – is these numbers that you’re reporting, which are over 20%, are probably more reflective of what’s actually going on in the economy? [7:47]

JOHN: I believe so. Again, the average person has a pretty good sense of what’s going on. And if they look globally and they know things are not doing well, they will tend to extrapolate that into a national level. They hear the government’s numbers, but they tend to disbelieve them and there’s good reason for that. The government’s numbers don’t reflect what’s going on. It’s a matter of how they define it. They put in happy definitions that tend to give them a better economic result with lower inflation rates. [8:16]

JIM: Let’s go on to the second graph that you have on the front of your website which is the alternative inflation rate, and they are both tracking from what the government reports, which is CPI-U, and then you have your measure. And your measure is probably closer to around 6% right now. It has been coming down so that might line up with Bernanke’s comment that the inflation pressures have gotten a little better, but they’re still at 6%. When you consider that people are getting 2% on a 10-year Treasury note, when the real inflation rate is 6%!

Printing money did not work during the Great Depression

JOHN: Sure. With the CPI, the Consumer Price Index the government’s broad measure of inflation, there you have something that is much more egregious, and really, sinister as far as I’m concerned in terms of what the government has done. You have to go back to the days of Mr. Greenspan in the early nineties, and Michael Boskin, who’s then the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors. They were beginning to protest that the Consumer Price Index overstated inflation. And oh, well, maybe we could correct that and get a lower inflation rate. That would help us reduce the deficit because it would reduce the cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security and such. Well, that’s something you’re seeing politicians playing with academic economists; in theory, it should have no relationship to the way people look at things. Again, it’s a matter of definition.

If printing money did not work during the Great Depression why are we repeating the same mistake?

So if the government is giving you too low of an inflation rate – which they are, and I’ll explain why – you’re really being cheated on a number of fronts and the government is not being honest putting that forward because they are using it to cut entitlement payments. (They’re trying to advance that further in terms of forthcoming budget deficit cuts with an even worse consumer price measure in terms of its significance.)

But what’s happened here? Go back in time to when this was used first in the cost of living adjustments in the auto union contracts. What they measured is what they called a fixed basket of goods. They’d take for example, let’s say they’d measure the price of a pound of beef or a gallon of gas or a loaf of bread, they’d price them out in current prices, and the next year they’d price out that same basket of goods. And whatever the change was in the cost of that basket of goods, that’s effectively how much your income had to go up in order to maintain a constant standard of living.

Now, getting back to Messrs. Boskin and Greenspan, if you ask Mr. Greenspan: What do you mean the CPI overstates inflation? His response was, well, let’s say the price of steak goes up, people are going to buy more hamburger and they buy more hamburger, their cost of living is going to go down. So really the CPI is overstated.

And Boskin would use the same example, only he would use people buying chicken instead of steak. Well, depending on how you define cost of living, if you use their definition, that is a cost of living but it’s not the cost of living of maintaining a constant standard of living. The government redefined it to make it maintaining a constant level of satisfaction, where you’d get to trade off dollars against your level of satisfaction. So if steak becomes too expensive and you don’t have the money to pay for it, you’re going to be satisfied buying hamburger instead of starving. That’s not what the average guy’s looking at or expecting here.

The other thing they did is they introduced hedonic adjustments, which are quality adjustments. Quality adjustments are legitimate. Let’s say the surveyors for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who go out each month and measure prices at all sorts of different locations, all sorts of different goods, let’s say the price of an 8 ounce candy bar; and the next month they go to price it and the package is the same but it’s a 6 ounce candy bar. They will pick that up; they look for it and they will mathematically adjust for that, so that you’ll actually see inflation because you’re getting less candy bar for the money.

They then look at what they started introducing in the 1980s with these hedonic adjustments that would make quality adjustments to goods. They would have econometric models that would estimate quality improvements that you could not directly measure. And if you can’t directly measure it, the guy who’s spending his money isn’t looking at that as an out-of-pocket expense.

An old example was when the government mandated change in gasoline prices; they mandated a reformulation of gasoline to help the quality of air that came out of exhaust pipes. The effect was that it added 10 cents per gallon to the cost of gasoline; that was a big percentage back in those days. They didn’t count that in the CPI because it was not a quality improvement that the average person would look at or quantify in their out-of-pocket expense measure. The guy pumping his car full of gas is moaning and groaning that he’s paying an extra 10 cents per gallon, he isn’t thinking “I’m spending 10 cents a gallon here to make the air better.” [14:26]

But getting into a little more nebulous area, they have hedonic adjustments for all sorts of things, including college textbooks. Now, one of the factors that goes into how the computer model will quality adjust the books is whether the books have color pictures in them. This is textbooks. Now, the average student, unless he’s an art student, most likely does not care much whether he’s got black or white or color photographs in the textbook. His concern is how much am I out of pocket for my textbooks this semester. And the cost of the increased books gets mathematically shifted to reflect these nebulous measures.

The effect is – and there’s been some press on this recently. The government puts out the headline numbers, the Consumer Price Index All Urban Consumers, that’s the CPI-U. They also have the CPI-W which is for wage earners; it’s more of a blue-collar measure. It’s one that they use for adjusting Social Security payments et cetera. It tracks very closely to the CPI-U. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics said, oh my goodness, in that we have such a perfect measure now with all these adjustments – and this is really a Rube Goldberg index because they’ve done things to this that really make no sense. They’ve just tried to bring down the reported level of inflation as much as they could. They said, oh, if only we could take these back in time and restate history. Well, they did. They created another index called the CPI-URS (for “research study”). And so they take that back in time and they say, well, we’ve compared those two going back in time and the average difference per year is only half a percent.

Well, that’s accurate to a certain extent. What that half a percent reflects in a period of time before 2000 when the bigger changes were made, that’s the incremental reduction each year, roughly, as a result of all these methodological changes. The problem is if you’re looking at it going back in time, you can say that’s half a percent a year, but coming forward in time it’s cumulative. And coming forward in time, starting back in 1980 you see a difference of roughly 5 percentage points; in other words, 2 percentage points on top of that in areas that the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t consider methodological.

But the effect is order of magnitude 7 percentage points that they’re now understating the inflation if you base on the 1980 methodology. If you base it on the 1990 methodology, it’s around 3%, which gets you up into the 6-plus percent range right now. So what I do with my estimates is I estimate what the current inflation would be if these changes had not been made using what the government’s published as the effects of the change. I have an additive system. I add back in the amount the government has said it’s taken out. So that with inflation somewhere – you can argue certain elements of it, but you know, running somewhere between 6 and 10 percent right now, nobody is staying ahead of inflation with anything that’s available in the domestic financial markets that’s reasonably safe, except for something like gold. I mean, over time, gold picks up the actual inflation.

In fact, if you go back to 1933 when Roosevelt abandoned the gold standard, since then the purchasing power of the dollar has dropped about 98 percent. That’s been fully covered by gold. And gold has actually covered more than the drop in the purchasing power based on the CPI-U if you look at my estimated adjusted work and try it out on the markets. [18:31]

JIM: John, a final question if I may. Come January 1st of next year, they’re calling it a “fiscal cliff.” We have the 1.2 trillion dollars of budget cuts that was agreed to last August when we had the debt-ceiling debate. And then on top of that we have the repeal of the Bush tax cuts, you have the repeal unless extended of the Social Security tax cuts; you have a 1.2% tax increase coming from the phasing out of itemized deductions for people in the certain income group; you have a 0.9% additional Medicare. So if you’re making 250, you could find yourself in a 45 percent tax bracket. Then you have the 3.8 percent additional tax on investment income capital from interest, dividends, pensions to annuity payments and real estate.

With the economy growing anemically at best, even if you want to take the government’s numbers at face value, at 2.2 percent, and given the fact that we’re in an election year where there’s no stomach in Congress to do any budget cutting, I mean, heck, the president can’t even get his own budget voted on by his own party. We haven’t had a budget in this country for over three years. What’s going to happen? I mean these guys have got to know, you cannot raise taxes 45 percent and cut 1.2 trillion from the budget and you think you’re going to have a booming economy. [20:05]

JOHN: Well, no chance of a booming economy. The deficit reduction is a fraud and the higher taxes will hammer the economy deeper in the ground. What can I tell you? Right now, disposable income, which is basically take home pay (after tax), adjusted for the government’s inflation is not growing. You can’t have any growth in the economy unless you’ve got real growth in income. The only way that consumption can grow faster than income is when you have debt expansion, and you don’t have either because of the debt crisis and the ongoing solvency issues of the banking system.

So you take a system that at best is showing flat disposable income, take the gimmicks out of it and you’re probably dropping 5 to 10 percent per year with disposable income after inflation adjustments. The taxes just make that worse. And again, that will severely hurt economic activity. In terms of the budget deficit, these guys are fraudsters. What can I tell you? You have a circumstance here where their budget deficit that they’re cutting is spaced out over 10 years; most of it is cutting the pace of increase in the deficit. They’re not really cutting the deficit per se.

All the budget projections are based on presumptions of 2 to 3 percent growth in the economy. We’re not going to have that. We don’t have that now. And with the weaker economy, you’ll end up with a much bigger budget deficit.

If you put in realistic projections of economic growth, that would more than offset this purported declines in the deficit. The deficit circumstance – they’re not doing anything serious here. Nothing is going on that will address the government’s long term solvency issues without a major change in political Washington. That may happen with the election, but it’s certainly not in place at the moment.

I don’t mean to sound like I’m getting upset here, but I really am upset with these guys. Where we are is a place we never should have gotten to, and the people in Washington know that and they’ve know where we’ve been going a long time; they’ve been playing politics with it. [22:19]

JIM: I’ve always marveled, John, when you look at Washington, they count a budget cut – let’s say I’m going to increase spending by 8 percent but I’m going to scale it back to 4 percent increase. They call that a budget cut. I mean look at the way the president has gone after Paul Ryan who’s not going to cut education spending. But if you listen to the president, we’re going to throw students out of the universities. I mean do you think they think we’re really stupid? [22:49]

JOHN: Yes. Absolutely. They’ve thought that for a long time. And to a certain extent it’s proven to be accurate with some of the voters. This is going to be a very interesting election year because the voting populace is not too happy with what’s happening with the economy; the average guy is feeling some financial pain and that usually leads to a change. But you need a real change here. You need someone in Washington actually addressing the problems and I just don’t see that happening, which leads to further disaster down the road – and not too far down the road. [23:47]

JIM: Yeah. I would say just looking at the numbers and the way that they’re growing that inflation scenario, I think, correct me, isn’t it still 2014? [23:35]

JOHN: 2014 I believe we will be in a hyperinflation. Yes. [23:38]

JOHN: All right. Well, listen, John, as always, I want to thank you for joining us on the program. And if you’re listening to this and you really want to understand why maybe what you hear on television doesn’t line up with what you see in reality, I highly recommend you go to John’s website – even better, get his newsletter – because John breaks out all these numbers and you get the real facts.

The website is called www.shadowstats.com. That’s all one word. And we’ve been speaking with its proprietor John Williams.

John, thanks for coming on the program. [24:09]

JOHN: Thanks so much for having me, Jim. [24:11]

Thanks Larry

CIA book review. For the historical record…

As President George W. Bush’s top speechwriter, Marc Thiessen was provided unique access to the CIA program used in interrogating top Al Qaeda terrorists, including the mastermind of the 9/11 attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM).

Now, his riveting new book, “Courting Disaster”, How the CIA Kept America Safe (Regnery), has been published.

Here is an excerpt from “Courting Disaster”:

“Just before dawn on March 1, 2003, two dozen heavily armed Pakistani tactical assault forces move in and surround a safe house in Rawalpindi . A few hours earlier they had received a text message from an informant inside the house. It read: “I am withKSM.”

Bursting in, they find the disheveled mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in his bedroom. He is taken into custody. In the safe house, they find a treasure trove of computers, documents, cell phones and other valuable “pocket litter.”

Once in custody, KSM is defiant. He refuses to answer questions, informing his captors that he will tell them everything when he gets to America and sees his lawyer. But KSM is not taken to America to see a lawyer Instead he is taken to a secret CIA “black site” in an undisclosed location.

Upon arrival, KSM finds himself in the complete control of Americans. He does not know where he is, how long he will be there, or what his fate will be.

Despite his circumstances, KSM still refuses to talk. He spews contempt at his interrogators, telling them Americans are weak, lack resilience, and are unable to do what is necessary to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals. He has trained to resist interrogation. When he is asked for information about future attacks, he tells his questioners scornfully: “Soon, you will know.”

It becomes clear he will not reveal the information using traditional interrogation techniques. So he undergoes a series of “enhanced interrogation techniques” approved for use only on the most high-value detainees. The techniques include waterboarding.

His resistance is described by one senior American official as “superhuman.” Eventually, however, the techniques work, and KSM becomes cooperative-for reasons that will be described later in this book.

He begins telling his CIA de-briefers about active al Qaeda plots to launch attacks against the United States and other Western targets. He holds classes for CIA officials, using a chalkboard to draw a picture of al Qaeda’s operating structure, financing, communications, and logistics. He identifies al Qaeda travel routes and safe havens, and helps intelligence officers make sense of documents and computer records seized in terrorist raids. He identifies voices in intercepted telephone calls, and helps officials understand the meaning of coded terrorist communications. He provides information that helps our intelligence community capture other high-ranking terrorists, KSM’s questioning, and that of other captured terrorists, produces more than 6,000 intelligence reports, which are shared across the intelligence community, as well as with our allies across the world.

In one of these reports, KSM describes in detail the revisions he made to his failed 1994-1995 plan known as the “Bojinka plot” to blow up a dozen airplanes carrying some 4,000 passengers over the Pacific Ocean.

Years later, an observant CIA officer notices the activities of a cell being followed by British authorities appear to match KSM’s description of his plans for aBojinka-style attack.

In an operation that involves unprecedented intelligence cooperation between our countries, British officials proceed to unravel the plot.

On the night of Aug. 9, 2006 they launch a series of raids in a northeast London suburb that lead to the arrest of two dozen al Qaeda terrorist suspects. They find a USB thumb-drive in the pocket of one of the men with security details for Heathrow airport, and information on seven trans-Atlantic flights that were scheduled to take off within hours of each other:

* United Airlines Flight 931 to San Francisco departing at 2:15 p.m.;

* Air Canada Flight 849 to Toronto departing at 3:00 p.m.;

* Air Canada Flight 865 to Montreal departing at 3:15 p.m.;

* United Airlines Flight 959 to Chicago departing at 3:40 p.m.;

* United Airlines Flight 925 to Washington departing at 4:20 p.m.;

* American Airlines Flight 131 to New York departing at 4:35 p.m.;

* American Airlines Flight 91 to Chicago departing at 4:50 p.m.

They seize bomb-making equipment and hydrogen peroxide to make liquid explosives. And they find the chilling martyrdom videos the suicide bombers had prepared.”

Today, if you asked an average person on the street what they know about the 2006 airlines plot, most would not be able to tell you much.

Few Americans are aware of the fact al Qaeda had planned to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11 with an attack of similar scope and magnitude.

And still fewer realize the terrorists’ true intentions in this plot were uncovered thanks to critical information obtained through the interrogation of the man who conceived it: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

This is only one of the many attacks stopped with the help of the CIA interrogation program established by the Bush Administration in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Editor’s Note: For other foiled terrorist plots, see page 9 of “Courting Disaster.”

In addition to helping break up these specific terrorist cells and plots, CIA questioning provided our intelligence community with an unparalleled body of information about al Qaeda Until the program was temporarily suspended in 2006, intelligence officials say, well over half of the information our government had about al Qaeda-how it operates, how it moves money, how it communicates, how it recruits operatives, how it picks targets, how it plans and carries out attacks-came from the interrogation of terrorists in CIA custody.

Former CIA Director George Tenet has declared: “I know this program has saved lives. I know we’ve disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than what the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.”

Former CIA Director Mike Hayden has said: “The facts of the case are that the use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work..”

Even Barack Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, has acknowledged: “High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country.”

Leon Panetta, Obama’s CIA Director, has said: “Important information was gathered from these detainees. It provided information that was acted upon.”

And John Brennan, Obama’s Homeland Security Advisor, when asked in an interview if enhanced-interrogation techniques were necessary to keep America safe, replied : “Would the U.S. be handicapped if the CIA was not, in fact, able to carry out these types of detention and debriefing activities? I would say yes.”

On Jan. 22, 2009, President Obama issued Executive Order 13491, closing the CIA program and directing that, henceforth, all interrogations by U.S. personnel must follow the techniques contained in the Army Field Manual.

The morning of the announcement, Mike Hayden was still in his post as CIA Director, He called White House Counsel Greg Craig and told him bluntly: “You didn’t ask, but this is the CIA officially nonconcurring”. The president went ahead anyway, over ruling the objections of the agency.

A few months later, on April 16, 2009, President Obama ordered the release of four Justice Department memos that described in detail the techniques used to interrogate KSM and other high-value terrorists. This time, not just Hayden (who was now retired) but five CIA directors -including Obama’s own director, Leon Panetta — objected. George Tenet called to urge against the memos’ release. So did Porter Goss. So did John Deutch. Hayden says: “You had CIA directors in a continuous unbroken stream to 1995 calling saying, ‘Don’t do this.’”

In addition to objections from the men who led the agency for a collective 14 years, the President also heard objections from the agency’s covert field operatives. A few weeks earlier, Panetta had arranged for the eight top officials of the Clandestine Service to meet with the President. It was highly unusual for these clandestine officers to visit the Oval Office, and they used the opportunity to warn the President that releasing the memos would put agency operatives at risk. The President reportedly listened respectfully-and then ignored their advice.

With these actions, Barack Obama arguably did more damage to America’s national security in his first 100 days of office than any President in American history.

The best-managed large bank in America?
CEO Jamie Dimon is one of the most respected bankers in the world? a true “Master of the Universe.”

According to who?

This from Stansberry:

Dimon has also been a loud critic of excessive government regulation of banks. He would prefer it if the government would let the “too big to fail” banks do most of their own policing. After all, guys like Dimon are geniuses, right?

Not exactly?

Giant banks like JPMorgan Chase aren’t like your regular community banks. In addition to making money by providing conventional banking services like savings accounts and consumer loans, many giant banks also attempt to make money by trading the financial markets. They’ll enter the market and place all kinds of bets on stocks, commodities, bonds, and currencies.

Many of these trades are so complex that even guys like Dimon don’t understand the risks involved?

That’s why last week, JPMorgan Chase reported that a series of bad trades lost the company $2 billion. The news shaved 9% off the company’s share price.

The loss isn’t “life threatening” for JPMorgan Chase. The company made $19 billion last year. But it’s hugely embarrassing for Dimon and his fellow bankers. It’s a public relations disaster.

Trading losses like this add fuel to the political fire for placing more restrictions on big banks. The fire might burn so hot that the hundreds of millions of dollars Wall Street spends on political campaigns and D.C. lobbying might not be able to put it out. But let’s not underestimate the capacity of Washington D.C. to get on the take and stay on the take.

The next big decline was due to the latest chapter in the European farce. We’d go into the details here, but the details don’t matter?

The European monetary union in its current form is doomed. Greece is a basket case. Nearly everything the politicians tell the public is a lie. Nearly everything the public expects (“free” health care, lavish pensions) is a delusion.

Considering all this, the euro is declining. It just reached its lowest low against the dollar in four months. This recent decline has breached the 1.29 level? and the euro is near its January low. It looks like the next leg of its bear market is starting?

By Stephen Dinan – The Washington Times

Ron Paul ends his hunt for votes

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas said Monday he will not compete in primaries in any of the states that have not yet voted — essentially confirming Mitt Romney will win the Republican presidential nomination.

Mr. Paul said he will continue to work to win delegates in states that have already voted and where the process of delegate-selection is playing out. He said that’s a way to make his voice heard at the Republican nominating convention in Tampa, Fla., in August.

“Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted,” Mr. Paul said. “Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have.”

He did encourage his supporters to still turn out and vote.

His decision not to compete for new votes in other states leaves Mr. Romney as the only candidate still actively fighting for voters’ support in the 11 states still to vote. That list includes the biggest prizes on the board — Texas and California.
The rest of the story …

I have to wonder if this story would have gone unnoticed had not Fox news picked it up and continued to hammer away at it. Until the authorities were FORCED for their own best interest to really seriously investigate and DO SOMETHING – ANYTHING?

I have watched the charming daughter of Jesse Jackson on Bill O’Reilly. Ms. Jackson does her best to make excuses for her father and Al Sharpton … both missing in action on these reverse race beatings.

Moral of the story?

Jackson and Sharpton are both charlatans only interested in stirring up trouble for blacks.
Hold those slaves back.
Keep them thinking they are victims.
Anything to keep the dollars rolling into their own coffers.

For all of the good Martin Luther King did these 2 did their very best to tear it down. Now with Barack Obama’s help it looks like he wants to finish the job.

Class warfare and victimization is the name of the game.

Has anyone noticed IT IS NO LONGER WORKING?
Except for those with a hand out or those with the brain capacity of a pea?

by Joe Kovacs
More blacks arrested in mob attack on whites.
Defense attorney: ‘I don’t think it has a racial intent’

Police in Norfolk, Va., have arrested three more black teenagers in connection with a mob assault last month on two white reporters for the local newspaper, a case which has sparked national public outrage but little media attention.

Two 16-year-olds and one 13-year-old were taken into custody Saturday, each charged with two counts of simple assault by mob and one count of participation in a riot, both of which are misdemeanors.

It brings the total number of arrested suspects to four, since another 16-year-old was arrested May 3, charged with throwing a missile at a vehicle, a felony, as well as two counts of simple assault by mob, destruction of property and participation in a riot, all misdemeanors.

As WND originally reported, the couple was pummeled at a traffic light April 14 by dozens of black teens, and the Virginian-Pilot newspaper did not report the incident for two weeks, despite the fact the victims, Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami, are both news reporters for the paper.

The attack was first reported in an opinion piece by columnist Michelle Washington.

“Wave after wave of young men surged forward to take turns punching and kicking their victim,” Washington wrote, describing the onslaught that began when Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami stopped at a traffic light while driving home from a show on a Saturday night. A crowd of at least 100 black young people was on the sidewalk at the time.

“Rostami locked her car door. Someone threw a rock at her window. Forster got out to confront the rock-thrower, and that’s when the beating began. …

“The victim’s friend, a young woman, tried to pull him back into his car. Attackers came after her, pulling her hair, punching her head and causing a bloody scratch to the surface of her eye. She called 911. A recording told her all lines were busy. She called again. Busy. On her third try, she got through and, hysterical, could scream only their location. Church and Brambleton. Church and Brambleton. Church and Brambleton. It happened four blocks from where they work, here at the Virginian-Pilot.”
the rest of the story …

As if Attorney General Eric Holder did not have enough trouble of his own he has now submitted a notice of his Justice Department’s intent to file a lawsuit against Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio for alleged racial profiling.

More of the dividing the country in order to drum up the Hispanic vote for Obama’s second term run on the WhiteHouse.

Holder wants to establish a court monitor inside Arpaio’s Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office who would clear every decision he makes.

That went over about as well as a pregnant pole vaulter as Arpaio denied the profiling allegations and refuses to allow the Obama DOJ to usurp his authority.

ATTA BOY JOE!

A defiant Sheriff Joe Arpaio is preparing to tell President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder “no way”. Apparently Arpaio is standing his ground despite the threat of a federal lawsuit.

According to WND Arpaio in a telephone interview has said “Clean your own house, Eric Holder, before you come trying to clean mine,”.

Meanwhile Arpaio intends to continue his investigation of President Obama’s eligibility, his Cold Case Posse has pressed the director of the Selective Service System not to destroy any microfilm records that may yet exist of Obama’s 1980 draft registration form.

In an emergency letter Wednesday to Selective Service System Director Lawrence Romo, Mike Zullo, the lead investigator in the Cold Case Posse, asked for reassurance that the microfilm records still exist.

Arpaio’s office received official confirmation from the Selective Service System that Obama’s paper draft registration records have been destroyed after being microfilmed.

AHHH GEEE you don’t think somehow the microfilm reels containing Obama’s record will suddenly disappear do ya?

More reading on the subject if you are interested:
http://www.wnd.com/2012/05/sheriff-joe-says-court-case-is-politics/
http://www.wnd.com/2012/05/sheriff-joe-says-court-case-is-politics/
http://www.wnd.com/2012/05/sheriff-joe-demands-obama-draft-registration/

Barack Obama has an abysmal governing track record.
Is it any wonder that the worst of 2 evils is Obama in the White House mucking things up for the country instead of being on the golf course while he vacations with his family and entourage every other day?

Unfolding before the public eyes is the class warfare that daily hits the air waves.

How stupid is the public and how many will fall for this distracting ploy?

Witness describes the strange and sudden death of Andrew Breibart?

Strange according to who?
Is WND short of material all of a sudden?
Mountain out of a mole hill?

I was present when a card player in the casino where I worked had a massive heart attack.

He walked into the poker room after winning over $1500 in a slot. Set the bucket of silver dollars on a table said “Hey I just hit a jackpot” … dropped to the floor dead without another word.

At least he died happy with a smile on his face.

There was nothing strange about it other than one is not use to watching someone exit this earth on such short notice without warning.