Category Archives: US News
Sting Against Amish Raw Milk Producer Results in Federal Case
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
May 1, 2011
A year long sting operation against an Amish “contraband” raw milk producer in Pennsylvania has resulted in a court case against Rainbow Acres Farms. The government filed a ten page complaint against the Amish business in federal court last week.
“It is the FDA’s position that raw milk should never be consumed,” said Tamara N. Ward, spokeswoman for the FDA.
According to the complaint, the FDA began to investigating Allgyer’s farm in late 2009, when an investigator in their Baltimore office used aliases to sign up for a Yahoo user group for Rainbow Acres’ customers, and began to place orders under the assumed names for unpasteurized milk, according to the Washington Times.
In order to make the case federal, orders were delivered to private residences in Maryland, where the investigator, whose name was not disclosed in the documents, would pick them up. By crossing state lines the milk became part of interstate commerce, thus subject to the FDA’s ban on interstate sales of raw milk, Stephen Dinan writes for the Times.
The FDA also says bottles of milk were unmarked, which is also a violation of FDA regulations.
In April of 2010, Amish farmer Dan Allgyer was raided two FDA agents, two U.S. Marshals, and a Pennsylvania state trooper for the crime of selling raw milk. “We have credible evidence that you are involved in interstate commerce,” FDA investigator Joshua C. Shafer told Allgyer.
“An investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has determined that you are causing to be delivered into interstate commerce, selling, or otherwise distributing raw milk in final package form for human consumption,” the FDA said in a letter to the farmer.
“These busybodies are citing Allgyer’s violation of the misinterpreted commerce clause, which was originally intended to prevent states from prohibiting individuals from doing business with one another across state lines. In other words, the federal food authorities are doing the exact opposite of their constitutional mandate,” writes Andrew Ward of Campaign for Liberty.
“Thank God for the federal government keeping us safe,” writes a FavStocks blogger sarcastically. “Perhaps, they will start strip searches at airports and feeling old lady’s boobies up to protect us from radical Islamic terrorists or some scary guys wearing camouflage who shoot guns on their own private property. Oh, wait, the federal government is already doing that too.”
Advocates cite evidence raw milk is more healthy than pasteurized milk when purchased from responsible farms. They say that pasteurization made sense in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when sanitation was poorly understood and practiced by players in the milk production/distribution chain, leading to outbreaks of milk-borne disease in urban areas, according to Craig Weatherby, writing for Vital Choices.
Romney: Blame Obama for Record Gas Prices
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
April 30, 2011
Sick and tired of high gas prices? It’s all Obama’s fault, according to Mitt Romney, who pumped his own gas on Friday as the cameras rolled.
“It’s a marketplace and if America is not serious about getting our own energy resources in line, then we are going to have higher and higher prices in part today as a result of the expectations of higher prices tomorrow,” Romney said, according to Reuters.
During a dinner sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, Romney said he wants to hang the “misery index” around Obama’s neck.
“You remember during the Ronald Reagan/Jimmy Carter debates? That Ronald Reagan came up with this great thing about the ‘misery index,’ and that he hung that around Jimmy Carter’s neck, and that had a lot to do with Jimmy Carter losing. Well, we’re going to have to hang the ‘Obama Misery Index’ around his neck. And, I’ll tell you, the fact that you’ve got people in this country, really squeezed, with gasoline getting so expensive, with commodities getting so expensive, families are having a hard time making ends meet. So, we’re going to have to talk about that, and housing foreclosures and bankruptcies and higher taxation,” he said.
Romney knows the president has little to do with gas lines and rising commodity prices. He’s just playing the establishment political game where the guy from the other party – that is to say the flip-side of the same party – takes the heat.
If we are unfortunate enough to end up with Romney in the White House, it will be his turn to take heat from Democrats. It’s a tag team game. Meanwhile, nothing changes and the nation continues its slide down the tubes.
Prices are sky high on gas, food, and commodities because the U.S. dollar is being sabotaged by the Federal Reserve and the bankers who own it. Romney’s misery index was created by the Fed.
Even CNBC, usually an obedient lickspittle, admits the Fed is to blame: “A combination of factors accounts for the weakness, with the Federal Reserve’s easy-money policies, huge national debts and deficits and the consequential possibility of a debt downgrade because of the financial mess in Washington leading the way.”
Obama blames the speculators for high gas prices. He promises to unleash Eric Holder and the Justice Department on them. “We are going to make sure that no one is taking advantage of the American people for their own short-term gain,” Obama read from his teleprompter screen as the gathered plebs politely applauded.
It’s not the speculators who are to blame. It is the Federal Reserve with the complicity of Congress and Obama, who are after all merely grocery clerks for the bankster elite.
Dollar devaluation is a direct result of the Federal Reserve printing funny money out of thin air in order to pay an engineered annual federal deficit. In fact, it no longer even prints the money – it just enters a few more digits in a computer.
“There are three primary culprits for today’s high gas prices, and none of them are speculators,” writes Craig Steiner. “The Federal Reserve is directly responsible for the rising prices of oil and other commodities. It is the Federal Reserve that has engaged in QE1 and QE2 and, as a result devalued our dollar which in turn raises prices of commodities such as oil that are priced in dollars.” Obama and Congress carry out the ruinous policies designed by the Federal Reserve.
“It is Obama and Congress that are causing the federal government to spend so much money that new dollars have to be printed to satisfy its borrowing needs. If the government weren’t borrowing so much money, the Federal Reserve wouldn’t be compelled to print money so we wouldn’t be facing the price inflation we are facing in oil and other commodities.”
In fact, the Fed is not compelled to do anything. It designed the Federal Reserve system specifically to lock the nation into a perpetual state of debt slavery.
Earlier this month, presidential hopeful Romney made it clear he has no intention of going after the Federal Reserve. “I’m not going to spend my time going after Ben Bernanke. I’m not going to spend my time focusing on the Federal Reserve,” he told Larry Kudlow. “I think Ben Bernanke is a student of monetary policy,” Romney added, “he’s doing as good a job as he thinks he can do.”
Romney and the Republicans will blame Obama and the Democrats while Obama and the Democrats blame Wall Street and the speculators who have packed Obama’s cabinet since day one. It’s a shell game, a parlor trick, a sleight of hand.
If the American people continue to allow this charade to continue, they deserve to be cut down by the financial Sword of Damocles now hanging by a thread over their heads.
It looks like Ron Paul will run. The American people better get behind him. It’s probably our last chance to save the nation and prevent the slide into grinding poverty and third world status.
The Tea Parties Now Have Their Man
Chuck Baldwin
Infowars.com
April 30, 2011
After I wrote my last column, several Tea Party activists contacted me to let me know that they had not been “neoconned.” They made it plain in no uncertain terms that they would never support establishment neocon Republicans such as Newt Gingrich for the office of President of the United States. Most assuredly, I was glad to hear from these folks; I only wish my mail box had been swamped with such correspondence–it wasn’t!
See my column at:
http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?p=3425
At this point, it may be helpful if I give a little history lesson. The Tea Party movement began in 2007 as a grassroots effort to support the 2008 Presidential candidacy of Congressman Ron Paul of Texas. I am proud to say that I was part of that effort. In fact, I actively campaigned for Dr. Paul in at least four states during that election cycle: Alabama, Florida, Iowa, and South Carolina. I was even honored to represent Dr. Paul in a major South Carolina GOP banquet, in which sitting US congressmen and senators were selected from around the country to represent most of the other Republican Presidential candidates. (I wish readers could have been a fly on the wall to witness the goings on at the speaker’s table during the banquet as these GOP congressmen and senators tried to figure out who I was, and what the heck I was doing there. It was quite a sight!) I well remember that, as I came down from the speaker’s platform, one US Senator told me that my promotion of Dr. Paul’s candidacy that night was the best presentation on behalf of the Texas congressman that he had ever heard. Since then, I have spoken at numerous Tea Party events and appeared on both local and national media outlets (and numerous private videos and recordings) discussing the merits of the Tea Party movement and promoting the candidacy of Dr. Paul.
We need to get this straight: the Tea Party movement was never about electing Republicans–especially neocon Republicans! The Tea Party movement began as a grassroots effort to reduce the size and scope of the federal government; to rid America of the oppressive tax burden under which it currently groans; to eliminate the Federal Reserve; to return America to sound money; to stop the federal government’s obsession with foreign entanglements and wars; and to return America to constitutional governance. And there was only one man within the two major parties that was going to bring about those changes in 2008: Congressman Ron Paul, which is why the Tea Party was birthed as a grassroots extension of his campaign.
Since then, however, many GOP shills and toadies have jumped on the Tea Party bandwagon and have attempted to redefine its goals and objectives, including many of the talking heads on FOX News. In truth, many Tea Party activists regularly look to Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and other “conservative” celebrities to champion their cause.
Need I remind everyone that Hannity has hardly ever met a Republican that he didn’t gush over. And I couldn’t count how many times we’ve seen Mr. Neocon himself, Newt Gingrich, on Hannity’s show. And as much as many people will cringe to hear this (and as much as I appreciate many things that Beck has to say), it was Glenn Beck who literally sabotaged a legitimate Tea Party candidate, Debra Medina, on his show. I would even dare say that Medina might have been elected Texas governor had it not been for the hatchet job Beck did on her. And as much as I like Sarah Palin for her fervent pro-life and pro-Second Amendment convictions, when it comes to foreign affairs, she is just another shill for the pro-war, military-industrial complex that has dominated US foreign policy since the days of Lyndon Johnson.
In 2008, the Tea Party movement supported one candidate: Ron Paul. He was the only Presidential candidate who had the guts to say the Federal Reserve was corrupt and needed to be eliminated; he was the only candidate (with the exception of Dennis Kucinich) who said the war in Iraq was unnecessary and unconstitutional; he was the only candidate who sponsored the Sanctity of Life Act, which would recognize the right of the states to nullify Roe vs. Wade; he was the only Republican candidate to speak out against the USA Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and other draconian police-state-type legislation and departments; and he was the only man from either party who had the guts to say the US should stop sending foreign aid to all countries–even Israel.
Now, here we are four years later. And, once again, the man who was responsible for the Tea Party movement coming into existence has entered the 2012 race for President. See the story, as it is reported in the National Journal:
Coinciding with his announcement that he was establishing an “Exploratory Committee” for his Presidential bid, Dr. Paul also launched his campaign web site, which is located at:
So, once again, the Tea Parties have their man. Will they support him in 2011 and 2012, as they did in 2007 and 2008? If they have not been “neoconned,” they will.
Chuck Baldwin’s article first appeared on his blog.
Osama bin Laden dead: Blackout during raid on bin Laden compound
Steven Swinford
The Telegraph
May 5, 2011
Leon Panetta, director of the CIA, revealed there was a 25 minute blackout during which the live feed from cameras mounted on the helmets of the US special forces was cut off.
A photograph released by the White House appeared to show the President and his aides in the situation room watching the action as it unfolded. In fact they had little knowledge of what was happening in the compound.
In an interview with PBS, Mr Panetta said: “Once those teams went into the compound I can tell you that there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes where we really didn’t know just exactly what was going on. And there were some very tense moments as we were waiting for information.
Dead Bin Laden Sends Message to U.S.
March 25, 2010
As the US is preparing to prosecute the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has threatened American citizens with new assaults.
Bin Laden issued the new warning in a new audio message broadcast on al-Jazeera television on Thursday.
Prosecutors are expected to seek the death penalty for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other people allegedly involved in the 9/11 attacks.
“The day America will take such a decision [to execute Mohammed and any others], it would have taken a decision to execute whoever we capture,” bin Laden said.
He added that US President Barack Obama was “following the footsteps of his predecessor [George W. Bush].”
Mohammed has been in US custody since March 2003, when he was captured in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi.
After initially blaming bin Laden and attacking Afghanistan in order to capture the Saudi national, US officials changed focus of their attention and announced that the main culprit has been transferred to the Guantanamo Bay prison.
In March 2007, Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing in Guantanamo claimed Mohammed and four co-defendants confessed to plotting for the attacks.
On December 8, 2008, they allegedly sent a note to the military judge expressing their desire to confess and plead guilty.
Human rights groups say the harsh treatment inflicted on Mohammed during his stay at Guantanamo amounts to torture, questioning credibility of the confessions under interrogation.
Insurance Industry “suddenly” excited about health care law, launches program to “Enroll America”
America 20xy
March 25, 2010
After supposedly opposing the president’s health care bill, which would force Americans to buy private insurance, and giving Americans over the past year the impression that the battle was that of a populist president vs. big business, the insurance industry is suddenly embracing the new law and wants to get as many Americans enrolled as possible!
 |
|
 |
|
| No doubt, for the insurance industry, the presidency of Barak Obama will be very good for business. | |
According to a TIME Magazine article: America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the industry trade group, has agreed to sign on to a new, 50-state health care reform implementation effort, provisionally called Enroll America, which is being organized by Ron Pollack of the pro-reform group Families USA. “We are participating in it,” says AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach. “The goal is to get everyone covered.”
The myth that insurance companies oppose legislation that would lay heavy fines on any citizen who doesn’t purchase their product was used by the mainstream media and the White House to make Americans believe that the victory of a few corporations somehow equated to victory for the people. While doing nothing to address the creation of new jobs so that the uninsured can sustainably afford the insurance they’re being forced to buy, the new law has assured the insurance industry an endless well of customers, backed by the US taxpayer if those customers are unable to pay.
Enroll America will focus on enticing the final 5% of Americans who will be eligible for health insurance under the new law but whom congressional budget scorers do not expect to enroll. On a state-by-state basis, the group will work to create an easy application process for benefits, including access to enrollment at doctors’ offices, pharmacies and government agencies that provide other benefits like food stamps.
Though the people behind Enroll America say they’re concerned that a small percentage of the population will defy the law, the IRS has been enlisted to help the government enforce the insurance mandate.
The Congressional Budget office estimates that 95% of Americans will get health insurance by 2016. That will add nearly 32 million previously uninsured people to the health-coverage rolls.
No doubt, for the insurance industry, the presidency of Barak Obama will be very good for business.
The Pelosi Sanction
Infowars.com
March 25, 2010
“Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough”
–Noah Cross
from “Chinatown”
What has become of our beloved America? Since Christmas Eve, 1913 our standard of living and quality of life has made a death spiral towards complete and utter despotism.
If you could go back in time to that fateful day when Congress met in the dark hours of the night to relinquish the sovereignty of this nation to the Federal Reserve, would you not do anything and everything within your power to make sure that never came to pass?
|
|
 |
|
| In a perfect world, Nancy Pelosi would be behind bars in an orange jumpsuit awaiting trial for treason. | |
Today we face the same dilemma. Just three days ago, Congress yet again met under the cover of darkness to pass a draconian health care bill that will no doubt seal this countries fate. Its 1913 all over again, and the very same banking families that brought us the Federal Reserve are responsible for this latest tax scheme veiled in a façade of socialism. It will be this, combined with an almost certain carbon tax scheme that will deliver the people of this once great Republic into a bondage of the likes the world has never seen.
Every member of the House who voted in favor of this monstrosity bear an equal share of the blame for delivering a deathblow to this nation. Their names will forever be etched into our minds even after the pages of history turn yellow and parched. But of all those responsible, one name stands out from the rest.
I’ve always tried to temper my words when writing about despicable people, but I find it particularly difficult to find the decorum to address the topic of Nancy Pelosi. If there is one creature lurking the halls of Congress who is most worthy of our contempt and disdain, it is this vile and hideous woman. Every criminal syndicate has their contingent of Capos and Lieutenants. Pelosi is one of those Lieutenants; a minion to a larger cabal of murderers and thieves who has placed herself into the spotlight to do their bidding. By way of threats, bribery and lies she and her henchmen have coordinated the most serious breech of Constitutional law in nearly 100 years; and she has done it all without exhibiting the slightest bit of remorse. To the contrary, she has demonstrated an almost sexual exuberance at the prospect of driving another nail into our collective coffin. Examine some of the pictures of this hag gloating over her victories on the floor of the House. She has become known for cocking her head back and letting out a shriek of laughter as she and her fellow traitors celebrate the passage of unlawful legislation that serve no other purpose but to break the backs, hearts and spirits of the American people.
We should never forget who this woman is or where she came from. In short, she is the spoiled rotten daughter of a Baltimore crime boss who didn’t miss a beat hopping from her rich Daddy’s lap to the lap of her multi-millionaire husband. During her quest for power and prestige, she has not once let her feet touch the same ground or travel the same difficult road that you and I travel on a daily basis. Yet there she is, on top of the world, looking down at the rest of us and mandating how we little people are to live our lives. To most Americans, this multi-millionaire-by marriage is the last thing they want to see as their jobs disappear and everything they have worked their entire lives for is taken out from under them. She is a walking insult; salt on a festering wound that aggravates the very conscience. What’s worse is that she flaunts her wealth and status traveling around the globe on her own personal jet with an entourage of groveling servants that are funded at the taxpayer’s expense. This cannot be allowed to continue.
So what are we to do? Is there any remedy? Though this latest legislation is a devastating blow to our economy and civil liberties, many of us are comforted in the likelihood that many of the incumbent Democrats will be voted out of office come November. Unfortunately, this will not affect Mrs. Pelosi in the slightest. Why? The answer to that question resides with her constituents in California’s 8th District of the U.S. House of Representatives.
San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the United States, if not the world. It is home to magnificent architecture, great historical landmarks and breathtaking views. It is also host to some wonderful people, many whom have made significant contributions to the American way of life. But San Francisco is unlike anyplace else in the country. It is perhaps the wealthiest, most affluent liberal stronghold in the nation. Since the late 1950’s, San Francisco has been the epicenter of liberal activism and a Mecca for counter-cultural revolutionaries from around the globe. The city is also a major American financial hub, second only to Wall Street. The Internet revolution of the 1990’s made many young progressive liberals rich beyond their wildest dreams and has given them considerable political clout.
The ideology of Pelosi’s constituents is reflected in their city’s politics. Democrats and Greens dominate it and no Republican candidate for President has ever garnered more than 20% of the vote. In 2005, the city overwhelmingly voted in favor of one of the strictest gun ban’s in the nation, though a legal challenge in California’s Appeal Court eventually overturned it. They’ve also enacted ridiculous environmental laws that prohibit residents from throwing orange peels, coffee grounds and grease-stained pizza boxes in the trash. Plastic shopping bags are outlawed as is bottled water for city employees. Just recently, they moved to expand their anti-smoking laws to encompass practically every outdoor space; making it one of the strictest of any American city. San Francisco is the nanny state on steroids, all with the overwhelming endorsement of their citizens.
And how have all of these draconian laws served to make their city a better place to live? The title of this article by journalist Benjamin Wachs says it all: The Worst-Run Big City in the U.S. In it he writes…
Despite it’s spending more money per capita on homelessness than any comparable city, its homeless problem is worse than any comparable city’s. Despite its spending more money per capita, period, than almost any city in the nation, San Francisco has poorly managed, budget-busting capital projects, overlapping social programs no one is certain are working, and a transportation system where the only thing running ahead of schedule is the size of its deficit. It’s time to face facts: San Francisco is spectacularly mismanaged and arguably the worst run big city in America. This year’s city budget is an astonishing $6.6 billion — more than twice the budget for the entire state of Idaho— for roughly 800,000 residents. Yet despite that stratospheric amount, San Francisco can’t point to progress on many of the social issues it spends liberally to tackle — and no one is made to answer when the city comes up short. The city’s ineptitude is no secret. “I have never heard anyone, even among liberals, say, ‘If only [our city] could be run like San Francisco,’” says urbanologist Joel Kotkin. “Even other liberal places wouldn’t put up with the degree of dysfunction they have in San Francisco.
These same voters who put their dysfunctional city government into power gave us Nancy Pelosi. Is this the model we want for the rest of the nation? Nancy Pelosi currently has an 11% national approval rating. No doubt the vast majority of those who comprise that percentage reside in her district. Yet, the elected representative of this tiny minority has been put into a position of power that wields the most significant influence on public policy and legislation. Everything she does on behalf of her constituents affects the remaining 89% of us who are absolutely opposed to the San Francisco model.
In a perfect world, Nancy Pelosi would be behind bars in an orange jumpsuit awaiting trial for treason. But we don’t live in a perfect world, and we cannot expect the cowards and traitors whose livelihood depends on the Federal government to step up and do the right thing. Don’t expect the people of San Francisco to do anything about it either. In the last election cycle, Pelosi won by a landslide 71.9% of the vote. The people of San Francisco don’t want to see her go. Pelosi espouses the same Marxist, Fabian Socialist ideology as her constituents. They are not concerned with what the rest of the nation wants, and its unlikely they ever will.
It is for this reason that I propose strong and crippling sanctions against the City of San Francisco. They must be made to hear the hue and cry of a nation that demands Nancy Pelosi be removed from office. Until they meet with our demands, we will cease to support their economy with our consumer dollars.
Tourism is the backbone of San Francisco’s economy. Any and all travel into or through San Francisco should cease. All conventions and seminars should be cancelled. If any business trips are planned, accommodations should be arranged outside the city limits. Hotels and restaurants should be notified that they should no longer expect our patronage as long as Nancy Pelosi holds office.
A BOYCOTT of companies headquartered in San Francisco should begin immediately. Some of those companies include The Gap, Levis-Strauss, Gymboree, McKesson Pharmacies, Sega of America, Lucasfilm, Wells Fargo Bank, Ghiradelli, Del Monte Foods, Hills Brothers Coffee and Anchor Brewing Company among others. I suggest a comprehensive list of companies be compiled and posted on an independent website with a view counter to reflect how many have consulted the list.
I also propose a BOYCOTT and letter writing campaign on Pelosi’s most ardent supporters. Among the more well known financial contributors to her campaign are people like Microsoft CEO Mike Balmer, Producer Steve Bing, Fashion Designer Liz Claiborne, Filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, Actress Jane Fonda, Wine Mogul Ernest Gallo, Microsoft Founder Bill Gates, Playboy CEO Christie Hefner, Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs, Casino Mogul Kirk Kirkorian, Actor Robin Williams and Men’s Warehouse Founder George Zimmer.
A full list of contributors to Nancy Pelosi’s campaign can be found at NewsMeat.com or by following this link:
http://www.newsmeat.com/campaign_contributions_to_politicians/donor_list.php?candidate_id=H8CA05035
Another source of political campaign contributions can be found at OpenSecrets.org or by following this link:
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00007360
Of course this is just a primer for a larger project. Hopefully, someone with better organizational skills than I will pick up on my suggestion and capitalize on it. It may be a small gesture, but if we are to defeat this woman we must attack her on all fronts (short of violence of course).
And if that doesn’t work? Maybe we should all consider picking up shop and moving to San Francisco so we can vote her out ourselves. We may not succeed, but a migration of angry, dissident patriots like us is sure to bring down property values.
So what do you say? Are you in, or are you out?
Sibel Edmonds Speaks Out on Whistleblower ‘Protections’
The Corbett Report
March 15, 2010
FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds joined The Corbett Report last Friday to discuss the deplorable state of whistleblower “protections” in the United States, including S.372, a bill making its way through the Senate that would allow the FBI and other “national security” agencies to dismiss whistleblowers’ claims without any form of oversight.
Click here to download an mp3 of the conversation or watch the YouTube video in the player below:
The details of Edmonds’ experience blowing the whistle on the FBI—where, in the wake of 9/11, she worked in the Turkish language division of the Washington field office’s translation department—are by now fairly well known amongst followers of the alternative media. The revelations that have emerged from her case have been explosive: that foreign operatives working within the translation department tried to recruit her for their operations; that there exists a nuclear spy ring aided and abetted by high ranking U.S. government officials selling America’s nuclear secrets on the black market; that foreign language intelligence directly pertaining to 9/11 was deliberately withheld from FBI agents in the field; that Osama Bin Laden had an ‘intimate relationship’ with the United States government right up until 9/11. Perhaps the only thing more remarkable than the information she has revealed is that she ever got to reveal it at all.
The route by which Sibel Edmonds became the silent, gagged star of the 9/11 Truth movement and the poster child of the national security whistleblowers club is a long and circuitous one, but to hear Edmonds herself tell it, it was never her intention to become a whistleblower: “What I did was what I had actually taken an oath to do, and that was to report wrongdoing or criminal activities or government waste and fraud and mismanagement to the ‘appropriate’ authorities.” Little did she know this was to be the first step on what has so far been an eight year long quest to bring the truth about what she witnessed to the public’s attention.
In 2002 the Senate Judiciary Committee held public hearings into Edmonds’ case. Also that year she filed suit against the Department of Justice. In October of that year, Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the state secrets privilege—an obscure piece of common law that allows the government to withhold ’sensitive’ information from discovery—to stop her case from going forward. In 2004, the Justice Department again invoked the state secret privilege to prevent Edmonds from testifying in a lawsuit by families of the 9/11 victims against various Saudi interests. The DoJ even retroactively classified the Senate Judiciary hearings into Edmonds’s claims that took place in 2002. Later that year, an Inspector General report completely vindicated Edmonds, confirming that her allegations cannot be refuted and that she was fired from the FBI simply for having spoken out about the corruption and criminal conduct she had witnessed. Senators who had promised to hold full hearings into her case once the Inspector General issued his report were nowhere to be found in its wake. In 2005, various Democrats pledged their support to Edmonds and other national security whistleblowers, but when they ended up taking over the House Oversight Committee after the 2006 mid-term elections, there was no extra effort made to bring the Edmonds case forward.
Needless to say, Edmonds is no longer waiting for congress to investigate her case properly. “It’s nothing but a cosmetic illusion of protection for whistleblowers,” she says of proper, government-approved channels for whistleblowers to blow the whistle. “If you look at the whistleblower cases brought in court [over the] past 10 or 15 years, you will see how many have really succeeded, which tells you it doesn’t work.”
Unfortunately, the media has not been up to the task either. Despite some early coverage on 60 Minutes, the media have largely ignored Edmonds’ story or failed to convey its significance. Regarding the 60 Minutes piece, she says, “They did not want to cover anything that had to do with corrupt congressional people, about the Turkish lobby. They didn’t want to cover that and they made it clear. […] It just ended up being a kind of an employment drama.”
Last year, Edmonds was finally deposed in the case of U.S. Congressional candidate David Krikorian. The only mainstream media outlet so far to cover her explosive, on-the-record testimony has been Larry Flynt’s Hustler Magazine.
Now with S.372, the government is merely adding insult to injury. “I really didn’t think it could get any worse until it was brought to my attention that this was what the Senate was looking at and this is what they wanted to do. And once I started reading, I said ‘Well, I was wrong, it can get worse.’” Now, Edmonds and her National Security Whistleblowers Coalition have teamed up with the National Whistleblowers Center to denounce the pending legislation that would actually strip national security whistleblowers of what few options they currently have for protesting their case. As a recent letter penned by Edmonds and other national security whistleblowers outlines, S.372 is set to make things all but impossible for future would-be whistleblowers:
[…]the scope of the new “State Secrets” summary dismissal powers is radically expanded. S. 372 accomplishes this by giving the heads of every agency defined under 5 U.S.C. 7532 the power to summarily fire whistleblowers, with no administrative or judicial appeal. Under S. 372 not only do the directors of the CIA and NSA have the power to summarily throw out whistleblower cases, this power is also granted to agencies and departments such as the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice and the Department of Commerce. Section 7532 covers over one half of the entire federal workforce.
Given just how stacked the system is against the whistleblowers, Edmonds is not likely to be celebrating should S.372 be stopped in its legislative tracks: “Even if this doesn’t go through[…]we won’t be celebrating as national security whistleblowers. We would just say ‘Well, good that it didn’t get worse.’”
So what is Sibel Edmonds trying to do now to bypass the corrupt government oversight channels and controlled mainstream media? Recently, she’s started a new website called BoilingFrogsPost.com. “We’ve put together a good team of reporters.[…]These are some of the best so-called alternative [reporters] who want to do this reporting, who want to go after these stories and keep bringing attention to it.” The site is only four months old, but already has an impressive list of op-eds, articles and audio interviews. “With the internet today we do have the opportunity for sending the links and sending the articles,” she points out. “That helps with raising awareness.”
Given the abysmal state of whistleblowing in the U.S. these days, perhaps ‘raising awareness’ is the best we can hope for at this time. After all, as Howard Beale in Network so sagely advised us, we have to get angry about things before we can hope to change them. And we will never get angry if we continue to rely on officially sanctioned government whitewash inquiries and milquetoast 60 Minutes reporting that fails to even ask people like Sibel Edmonds what she was trying to blow the whistle about. The internet is the last great hope for people like Sibel to get their story out.
Still, it is a long, slow and painstaking process to bring the public up to speed on these issues and why they are so important. It could take years before the American public starts to get angry enough to demand real answers to Edmonds’ questions en masse. But given the tenacity of this woman to have pursued this topic for nearly a decade, I imagine that when the public does reach that point, Sibel Edmonds will be ready.
Rep. Dingell Admits Obamacare Will Eventually “Control the People”
Infowars.com
March 24, 2010
“It takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps… to control the people.”
Ron Paul Schools Geithner On Austrian Economics
March 24th, 2010
During a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, Congressman Paul questioned Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Austrian economic theory and government’s creation of moral hazard.
Can't hear this, you are in Audio Prison ... 