Deadliest War of 21st Century Is Being Waged Right on Top of Us.

Update:

Smuggling and Trafficking Routes Into and Through Texas

At the end of 2012, the reported number of Mexican citizens violently murdered was estimated much higher than the mainstream media stated, the real death rate is between 120,000 - 130,000.  However, in truth, the Mexican government doesn't really know, so it could be twice that number. To be sure, it's not less as governments, if anything, under report such statistics for the simple reason it does not reflect well.

Moreover, the cartel's presence in the United States is growing. Especially in Texas where six out of the eight cartels are present according to the Texas Public Safety Threat Overview 2013

“Mexican cartels continue to use gangs in Texas as they smuggle drugs, people, weapons, and cash across the border. [...]

Gangs’ Relationships with Mexican Cartels

(U) One of the most serious issues facing Texas is the fact that many gangs have developed relationships with Mexican cartels. Gangs working with the Mexican cartels are involved in a level of crime that affects the entire state. Their criminal activity is no longer just a problem for a specific city or region. In certain instances, these gangs are contracted to commit assassinations, kidnapping, and assaults in Texas and Mexico on behalf of the cartels.

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47,515 killed in the last 5 years alone from Mexican drug cartel violence, and they are expanding into U.S. cities at an alarming rate, yet, there is no alarm. Gosh, the Mexican drug cartels shot the White House, shattering one of its windows with an AK47, leaving a nice little note telling President Obama, “Aquí está uno de los nuestros, no la suya necesitan.” That is, “Here’s one of ours, we don’t need yours,” yet, all the alarm bells toll for "so-called" terrorists clear across the world.

US cities and towns with Mexican Drug Cartel presence

Alabama
Albertville
Birmingham
Decatur
Dothan
Huntsville
Mobile
Montgomery

Alaska
Anchorage

Arizona
Douglas
Glendale
Naco
Nogales
Peoria
Phoenix
Sasabe
Sierra Vista

Arkansas
Fort Smith
Little Rock

California
Alameda
Calexico
Chula Vista
El Centro
Elk Grove
Escondido
Fresno
Garden Grove
Hacienda Heights
Hayward
Los Angeles
Oakland
Oceanside
Oxnard
Perris
Porterville
Sacramento
San Bernardino
San Diego
San Francisco
San Jose
Santa Ana
Stockton
Temecula
Tulare
Westminster
Yuma

Colorado
Aurora
Colorado Springs
Denver
Fort Collins
Greeley
Pueblo

Connecticut
Hartford

Florida
Fort Lauderdale
Jacksonville
Lakeland
Miami
Orlando
Tampa

Georgia
Atlanta

Hawaii
Hilo
Honolulu
Kona

Idaho
Boise
Caldwell
Idaho Falls
Honolulu
Kona
Nampa
Pocatello
Twin Falls

Illinois
Chicago
East St. Louis
Joliet

Indiana
Fort Wayne
Gary
Indianapolis

Iowa
Des Moines

Kansas
Kansas City
Liberal
Wichita

Kentucky
Lexington
Louisville

Louisiana
Baton Rouge
Lafayette
New Orleans
Shreveport

Maryland
Baltimore
Greenbelt

Massachusetts
Boston
Fitchburg

Michigan
Detroit
Kalamazoo

Minnesota
Minneapolis
St. Cloud

Mississippi
Hattiesburg
Jackson

Missouri
Kansas City

Montana
Billings
Helena

Nebraska
Omaha

Nevada
Carson
Las Vegas
Reno

New Hampshire
Greenville

New Jersey
Atlantic City
Camden
Newark

New Mexico
Albuquerque
Columbus
Deming
Las Cruces

New York
Albany
Buffalo
New York


North Carolina
Burlington
Charlotte
Durham
Greensboro
Hendersonville
Raleigh
Wilson
Winston-Salem

Ohio
Akron
Canton
Cincinnati
Cleveland
Dayton
Hamilton
Toledo
Youngstown


Oklahoma
Oklahoma City
Ponca City
Tulsa

Oregon
Eugene
Medford
Portland
Roseburg
Salem

Pennsylvania
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh

Rhode Island
Providence

South Carolina
Charleston
Florence
Greenville
Myrtle Beach

South Dakota
Sioux Falls

Tennessee
Knoxville
Memphis
Nashville

Texas
Alpine
Amarillo
Beaumont
Big Spring
Brownsville
Corpus Christi
Dallas
Del Rio
Edinburg
Eagle Pass
El Paso
Fabens
Fort Hancock
Fort Stockton
Fort Worth
Hidalgo
Houston
Laredo
Lubbock
McAllen
Midland
Midway
Odessa
Pecos
Presidio
Rio Grande City
Roma
San Antonio
Tyler
Waco

Utah
Ogden
Olathe
Provo
Salt Lake City
St. George

Virginia
Arlington
Galax
Richmond

Washington
Auburn
Bellingham
Centralia
Ephrata
Everett
Federal Way
Ferndale
Goldendale
Milton
Monroe
Olympia
Port Angeles
Renton
Richland
Seattle
Selah
Shelton
Spokane
Sultan
Sunnyside
Tacoma
Voppenish
Vancouver
Yakima

Wisconsin
Milwaukee
Sheboygan

Wyoming
Casper
Cheyenne
Rock Springs

Related Links:

Expert Says Beheadings in U.S. Look Like Work of Cartels

Three beheadings in two different states and they happened here in the United States, not Mexico.

Former DEA supervisor Phil Jordan says all three beheadings have cartel written all over them. They happened in Arizona and Oklahoma in the past year.

A murder mystery is now unraveling on a stretch of North Reservation Road in Tucson, Ariz. County workers found a headless man lying on the side of the road Jan. 6. The man's hands and feet were reportedly missing, too.

"It would lead me to believe the message wanted to be sent. This is one of the ways they do it in Mexico, Colombia and other places," says Jordan.

Jordan says the cartels are getting bolder in carrying out their beheadings across the border. He says we only used to see these crimes in Mexico.

"They don't have any borders," says Jordan.

More than 600 miles from the border, a 19-year-old human trafficking victim was found beheaded in Oklahoma. Carina Saunders was stuffed into a bag and left in a grocery store parking lot.

"People know if they get on the wrong side of the fence, they'll be dealt with," says Jordan.

The police chief in the area says two men running the trafficking ring killed Saunders to send a message to the other victims. Jordan says the cartels' calling card is all over this case. Trafficking and smuggling are their top moneymakers. Revenge is the price of doing business.

"Definitely a cartel hit," says Jordan.

Investigators in Chandler, Ariz., say cartel operatives came from Mexico to kill 38-year-old Martin Alejandro Cota Monroy. His beheaded body was found in his apartment.

"One is too many; two is too many. Three should send an alarm," says Jordan.

He says investigators were too late to stop the killings three times in the last 12 months. Jordan says agents are trying to develop more informants to get to the cartels before they can commit the crimes. He says the cartels will only specifically target their victims and aren't interested in random beheadings.

Mexican hit men stalk U.S.

Cartels use legitimate trade to launder money, U.S., Mexico say Essentially, it boils down to drug cartels laundering money under NAFTA.

US Agents help launder millions for Mexican Drug Cartels

2011 National Drug Threat Assessment U.S. Department of Justice National Drug Intelligence Center 

The Economic Impact of Illicit Drug Use on American Society U.S. Department of Justice National Drug Intelligence Center

Read more...

Drug Cartel Control on the Increase in the United States.

The US shares nearly 2,000 miles of border with Mexico, a country that has witnessed over 100,000 drug-related murders in the last six years alone. The "war on drugs" continues to fuel this violence, and it is America's silence on the matter that allows cartel activity to cross the border into at least 1,300 of our cities. To be sure, drug cartels are now a dangerous presence on the U.S. side of the border.

Despite our political leaders constant reminders of the dangers lurking around every corner from terrorists in countries--Iran, China, Pakistan-- half a world away, they never mention the very real danger that is literally in our own backyard. American citizens--especially in rural areas-- along the border from California to Texas are experiencing a slow but steady rise in drug-related violence and intimidation.

The obvious answer is to legalize drugs and de-fund the cartels, thereby reducing their enormous power, however, that will never happen, because it will also de-fund our ruling class.



Links:

Drug cartels laundering money with construction equipment

Cartels flood US with cheap meth

Mexican drug cartels’ US stake: $1 trillion

Zetas' next boss may be worse than the one just killed

Read more...

Land of the Free or Jim Crow Incarceration Nation?

The number of Americans in prison has risen eight-fold since 1970, despite the fact that crime rates have decreased.  How can that be?  Well,  today, over 2.3 million American citizens, mostly non-violent, are behind bars. Our nation has the largest prison population in the world - with only 5% of the global population, one-quarter of the entire world’s inmates are in the U.S. It is not the land of the free, if it ever was.  And now that the middle class is eroding, people who were once considered reasonably secure in their gated communities, are being thrown to the wolves, so to speak, ripe for picking.  According to FBI statistics, 35,948 Americans are arrested in the US, on a daily basis, most of them African American, and to be sure, the great majority, poor.

"More than two million people found themselves behind bars at the turn of the twenty-first century, and millions more were relegated to the margins...where discrimination in employment, housing, and access to education were perfectly legal, and where they could be denied the right to vote....Ninety percent of those admitted to prison for drug offenses in many states were black or Latino, yet the mass incarceration of communities of color was explained in race-neutral terms....The New Jim Crow was born" - Michelle Alexander in "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" (p. 58).

By criminalizing addiction, and militarizing state and local police forces, the "war on drugs" more than quadrupled our prison population in less than three decades. According to the Cato Institute, in 1997 alone, the Pentagon handed over more than 1.2 million pieces of military equipment to local police departments. The agency also "handled 3.4 million orders of Pentagon equipment from over eleven thousand domestic police agencies in all fifty states." The Cato report also stated, "paramilitary units/SWAT teams were quickly formed in virtually every major city to fight the war on drugs."

So, with the advent of for profit prisons, there is a lobbying arm in state houses across the country and in DC  demanding harsher punishments for "crimes" that hardly constitute any great wickedness; iniquity; and or wrong.

Make no mistake. Not only is this about oppression of an ever-increasing sector of society, this is about creating huge profits for our corporation nation by funneling an ever-increasing number of human beings into slavery.  Private prisons keep only the low cost prisoners - forty cents an hour - because they use them as slave labor and send the harder to control prisoners back to the state prisons where the tax payers pay for it. All prisoners are assigned a CUSIP number, which earns even more profit for the corporation nation.

The private corporate court earns a percentage of the amount of money it collects in fines, and also receives kickbacks by placing citizens in prison or on probation. All prisoners are assigned a CUSIP number based on that prisoner’s STRAWMAN trust. This CUSIP # is then bundled up with other CUSIP numbers and sold as bundled securities on the securities markets. These are bundled persons. Prisoners are commodities for which the fruit of their labor is traded. This is why jails are overflowing, and why so many people get unsupervised probation for so many months. Probationary status is still a form of incarceration, and community service is often assigned. People on probation receive the CUSIP number as well, and are bundled just like the in-house prisoners.

In the book "The New Jim Crow: : Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" author, Michelle Alexander cites slavery, Jim Crown, and Mass Incarceration as "the three major racialized systems of control adapted in the United States to date." She makes the connection between the prison-industrial complex and the "war on drugs", and the disproportionately high number of African American incarcerated in state and federal prisoners. She argues that this system of mass incarceration "operates as a tightly networked system of laws, policies, customs, and institutions that operate collectively to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race." The War on Drugs, the book contends, has created "a lower caste of individuals who are permanently barred by law and custom from mainstream society."

In addition to decades of broad U.S. public and political support for getting tough on criminals through longer, harsher prison terms and to the Bush administration's anti-drug and strict-sentencing policies, Alexander points out how the Clinton administration legislated "Three Strikes and Your Out," and the five-year mandatory sentencing for drug offenses due to the use of Crack, which disproportionately targets blacks. Of course, these laws are discriminatory due to the fact that cocaine use in the white community is usually treated as a misdemeanor, which is ridiculous since you need cocaine to produce crack.

There is no doubt that the "War on Drugs", when created, was targeted toward African Americans in an effort to break up families, creating a new racial caste system that renders black males, especially, into non-citizens. They lose the right to vote, and are unable to get a job.  They're ineligible for public assistance such as housing and food stamps, unable to qualify for loans and/or grants for education, and, finally, unable to obtain licenses due to their felony status. Not to mention, the extremely narrow margin of hope when released. This creates a viscous circle that perpetuates itself by increasing homelessness and joblessness, forcing these men and women back into "crime" in order to survive, where the cycle starts all over again.

Moreover, children are left without fathers and mothers without husbands. Alexander writes,

"The U.S. Census Bureau reported in 2002 that there are nearly 3 million more black adult women than men in black communities across the United States, a gender gap of 26 percent. In many areas, the gap is far worse, rising to more than 37 percent in places like New York City. The comparable disparity for whites in the United States is 8 percent. Although a million black men can be found in prisons and jails, public acknowledgment of the role of the criminal justice system in `disappearing' black men is surprisingly rare. Even in the black media-which is generally more willing to raise and tackle issues related to criminal justice-an eerie silence can often be found."

Furthermore, Alexander writes,

"More African American adults are under correctional control today- in prison or jail, on probation or parole- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. The mass incarceration of people of color is a big part of the reason that a black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. The absence of black fathers from families across America is not simply a function of laziness, immaturity, or too much time watching Sports Center. Thousands of black men have disappeared into prisons and jails, locked away for drug crimes that are largely ignored when committed by whites. The clock has been turned back on racial progress in America." She also states, "African American (youth) were more than six times as likely as whites to be sentenced to prison for identical crimes," because of "unconscious and conscious racial biases infecting decision making."

The bottom line is that, although this was initially designed for the Mass Incarceration of the non-white population, it has now morphed into a war on the entire poor population, growing larger everyday. Total exploitation of the down trodden.

Another excellent book on the subject is "Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire " by Robert Perkinson, which goes into great detail concerning the pernicious rise of America's "for-profit" prison system.

"...is a history of imprisonment, race, and politics from slavery to the present, with an emphasis on Texas, the most locked-down state in the nation. Sweeping in scope and exhaustively researched, it tries to answer some of the most vexing questions of our time: Why has the United States built the largest prison system in the world, unlike anything in the history of democratic governance, and why have racial disparities in criminal justice worsened over the past two generations, despite the landmark victories of the civil rights movement? Drawing on a decade of archival, legal, and legislative research, combined with scores of interviews, this book argues that the history of American criminal justice is a more southern story than most have acknowledged (the prison boom began and has remained most pervasive in the South) and that the politics of race and reaction have played a more prominent role in the expansion of incarceration than elevated crime rates. By drawing parallels between the development of segregation and convict leasing in the aftermath of Reconstruction and the rise of mass imprisonment in the wake of integration, Texas Tough contends that America’s imprisonment crisis has taken shape as the latest chapter in America’s tragic racial history and that a concerted nationwide effort will be required to move the country toward a more equitable and genuinely democratic future."

"America needs fewer laws, not more prisons." -- James Bovard

"Criminal: a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation." -- Howard Scott

Read more...

Another Effort to Take the Internet Away From the People.

Behind closed doors, in Dallas Texas, trade representatives of big corporations are secretly negotiating a massive trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which includes regulations for the Internet – including intellectual property provisions that could potentially "harm online expression, privacy and innovation on the Internet".

This Agreement may be even worse than ACTA as it could tie the hands legislators and create new, international standards for intellectual property enforcement. Internet users and free expression advocates like EFF aren’t allowed in the room and are forbidden from seeing the text, even though U.S. Trade Representatives claim  they have made “extraordinary efforts” to include public stakeholders in negotiations. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Like ACTA, negotiations exclude the public, while welcoming private industry representatives with open arms.

Last week, 32 legal scholars sent a letter to the office of the USTR demanding transparency in the process. Including the release of the text and demand for real participation from civil society, they demanded the immediate release of “reports on US positions and proposals on intellectual property matters that are currently given only to Industry Trade Advisory Committee members under confidentiality agreements.” This is key because there is nothing that could justify the withholding of such reports that simply outline the U.S. position on intellectual property from the public. This is especially true given the fact that the U.S. government’s proposals could impede Congress from engaging in domestic legal reform of legislation regulating IP.

US Congressman Darrell Issa just released the Trans Pacific Partnership Intellectual Property Rights Chapter on KeepTheWebOPEN.com. Only problem is, it's the old 15-month old version. How stupid do they think we are?

Via Public Citizen:

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is being negotiated in secret and the stakes for the 99% couldn't be higher...The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) "free trade" agreement is a stealthy policy being pressed by corporate America, a dream of the 1 percent, that in one blow could:

• offshore millions of jobs,

• free Wall Street and its banksters from oversight,

• reduce Internet freedom,

• ban policies needed to create green jobs and rebuild local economies,

• decrease access to medicine by extending drug company monopolies,

• empower corporations to attack our environmental and health safeguards, such as tobacco control and clean air and water regulations.

Closed-door talks are on-going between the U.S. and Australia, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam; with countries like Japan and China potentially joining later.

600 corporate advisors have access to the text, while the public, Members of Congress, journalists, and civil society are excluded. And so far what we know about what's in there is very scary!

But there's still time to organize to shine a light on the horrors of the TPP and convince our governments to instead pursue policies that benefit the 99% in our countries. Watch this video (you may want to mute) and then take action by signing our petition calling for an end to secrecy in the TPP negotiations.

TPP: Spreading NAFTA to Asia and Chile...Guaranteed to screw you and me.

Read more...

Boys For Sale: The Widespread Use and Abuse of Male Children for Sexual Purposes

In lieu of the Penn State scandal, which very well might just be scraping the surface of something much deeper, this shocking documentary reveals the disgusting practice that goes on amongst some of the most respected people at the top levels of the U.S. corporate and governmental structures. As Dr. Tom Philpott said, the "slaughter of innocence."

Boys for Sale: Part 1



Part 2


Part 3



Part 4



Part 5

Read more...

Watch How the FDA Suppresses a Cure For Cancer.

The following documentary is a MUST-SEE for everyone! I have yet to see anything so fully documented that exposes the extraordinary measures that the FDA will resort to in order to ensure that cancer remains the killer that it is, and  that Chemotherapy remains the torture-chamberous non-curing treatment that it is. Not to mention, this film, in addition to detailing the FDA's 14 year campaign to remove Dr. Stanislaus Burzynski, who found a cure for cancer, from society, also reveals the battle Dr. Burzynski had with the National Cancer Institute, who is just as bad.

"Our bodies contain two categories of genes that allow cancer to flourish: oncogenes, and tumor suppressor genes. When someone has cancer, they have a higher level of oncogenes switched on, with a higher level tumor suppressor genes switched off.

The goal is to tell the body to both switch back on the tumor suppressor genes, and turn off as many oncogenes as possible."

It comes to no surprise to most of us that the median annual American pharmaceutical company profits triples the median annual profits of all of the Fortune 500 companies. But, how does Big Pharma maintain these astounding profits? Well, through its gatekeeper: the FDA, and the National Cancer Institute.

"Big Phama" didn't manifest overnight. It was an ongoing process that started in the 1970s and 1980s.  At the time,  profitability of the pharmaceutical industry was two times greater than the median of all industries in the Fortune 500. In the 1990s, when the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA)- which authorizes drug companies to pay "user-fees" to the FDA for each brand-name drug considered for approval, greatly speeding up the approval process - kicked in, the drug industry's profitability grew to almost four times greater than the median for all industries in the Fortune 500.

After the PDUFA was enacted, the part of the FDA that reviews new drugs received more than half its money from user fees and it grew by leaps and bounds.  Meanwhile, the part of the FDA that monitors safety, ensures manufacturing standards, and checks ads for accuracy deteriorated. Not only that, the approval process for brand-name drugs shortened to 3 months, from its previous 21 months. Yet, here it is 2011, and Antineoplaston Therapy has been waiting approval since 1977.

On June 21, 1977, Dr. Burzynski's attorney's investigated both state and federal law to find out if it was legal for him to start his own biomedical research company to make the Antineoplastons (non toxic cancer treatment) and administer them to patients within his private practice.  He found out it was legal as long as he avoided interstate commerce.

However, it was not soon after that Burzynski's patients found themselves harassed by the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners(TMB) to file charges against their doctor, and the FDA started its witch hunt.

In 1983, the FDA obtained an injunction from a federal district court prohibiting Dr. Burzynski and the Burzynski Research Institute from shipping antineoplastons in interstate commerce without first obtaining the approval of the FDA. The injunction, however, did not preclude intrastate distribution of the antineoplastons.

On July 28, 1986, the TMB began investigating Dr. Burzynski, even though no formal complaint had been filed, and on November 18, 1986, a notarized agreement between Burzynski and the TMB was created requiring the doctor resent a list of 40 successful cases.  He submitted double that number. He never heard back.

On September 6, 1988, the TMB convened a hearing to decide whether or not to revoke Burzynski's medical license. Texas State Board of Medical Examiners vs. S. Burzynski

Dr. Burzynski faced numerous battles with the federal government over the years. Between 1986 and 1994, he was subjected to three federal grand jury investigations. No indictments were ever handed down. However, during that time federal officials raided his research clinic and confiscated his patients' medical records.

Then in March 1995, Dr. Burzynski appeared on the CBS TV show "This Morning," accompanied by three of his patients. That very afternoon, the FDA raided his clinic again. A fourth federal grand jury investigation got underway, and by November 1995, charged Dr. Burzynski with 40 counts of distributing a non-FDA approved drug in interstate commerce, 34 counts of mail fraud, and one count of contempt of court for violating the order against interstate delivery of Antineoplastons. Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) noted that a grand jury's failure to indict someone after three attempts is "virtually unprecedented."

On February 9, 1996, US District Court Judge Sim Lake ruled that Dr. Burzynski cannot treat patients outside of clinical trials. In other words, he issued a death sentence for hundreds of Dr. Burzynski's patients.

This prosecution marked the first time the FDA had tried to jail a scientist for using a drug on which he was conducting FDA authorized clinical trials. This trial alone, which was not even based on whether or not antineoplastons work or not cost the American taxpayer $60 million, while costing Dr. Burzynski over $2.2 million!

On March 4, 1997, due to a dead-locked jury, a mistrial was declared.

The FDA still did not back down. A second federal trial got underway May 19, 1997 to try Dr. Burzynski on the contempt of court charge. A federal jury acquitted Dr. Burzynski on May 27, 1997.

At the same time, Dr. Burzynski was fighting the Texas Medical Examiner's Board and the FDA, the National Cancer Institute, under Dr. Michael Friedman, tried to co-opt his discovery and render it ineffective.

A former employee of Dr. Burzynski, Dvorit Samid, betrayed him when she partnered with Elan Pharmaceutical through her employment with the National Cancer Institute and tried to hijack Burzynski's discovery. The problem was that she used only one component of the antineoplaston, phenylacetate, which when isolated, has very little clinical effect.

When that didn't work, the National Cancer Institute said they would accept Dr. Burzynski's antineoplastons; however, only if they could revise the protocol that Dr. Burzynski had perfected. Burzynski refused. The NIC threatened with patent infringement. Finally, they came to an agreement. Yet, within a very short time, in March 1995, the NIC tried to drastically alter Burzynski's protocol to make his treatment less effective!!

Four years after the NCI trials were closed and two years after Burzynski defeated the FDA, winning his freedom, the NCI, in February of 1999, decided to vindictively publish the scientifically invalid Antineoplaston trials in peer-reviewed medical literature. However, whoever published the invalid trials forgot to leave out the dosage, which in some patients was 2.7 times lower than the protocol demanded, and in other patients, 36 times lower, and, in even other patients, 170 times lower!

Li-Chuan Chen, PhD, who worked as a scientist for the National Cancer Institute from 1991-1997, said that when the NCI or assigned entities conducted trials on alternative cancer therapies they always altered the protocol and let it fail in order to discredit the therapy. He went on to say, "Scientists never look at it carefully, because as he says, Popeye is telling you something and you don't question him...under the capitalist sun, there is nothing sacred."

Here's the kicker. On October 21. 1991, the United States of America as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services, along with "Inventor": Dvorit Samid filed a patent for Antineoplastons. On October 12. 1993, the US and Dvorit Samid file for a second patent on Antineoplastons. And on March 7, 1994, the US and Dvorit Samid file its most comprehensive patent spanning 111 pages. Seven months later they file a fourth one. On 6/6/1995, the US files its 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th extended patent. The next day, the US files its 9th, 10th, and 11th patent. A few months later, Dr. Michael Friedman leaves his position at the NCI and becomes Deputy Commissioner of Operations for the FDA, working directly under Dr. David Kessler.

In the three years (1997-2000) after Dr. Burzynski was indicted, all of the US patents for Antineoplastons were approved. However, one paragraph within these patents, in particular, is quite revealing:

Since 2009, the  only obstacle in the way of Antineoplasmons is the $300 million pricetag on the final phase of FDA clinical testing...and the FDA's requirement that children with inoperable brainstem glioma to also under go radiation treatment in these Phase 3 trials, claiming it would be unethical to do otherwise. 



Links:

Big Pharma Deals to Preserve High Drug Prices Skyrockedted in FYI 2010

The Truth About Drug Companies by Marcia Angell

Pay-For-Delay: How Drug Company Pay-Offs Cost Consumers Billions


Families USA

Bush Administration Back Pharmaceutical Industies Over the Needs of Millions of Senior Citizens

Read more...

Bank of America's Dead Drop to Rick Perry and Goldman Sachs VP Changes Name to Lobby From Inside.

Bank of America is cutting 3,500 jobs this quarter according to an internal memo, as the biggest U.S. bank grapples with its $1 trillion problem-loan portfolio and growing economic concerns. Upon wider review, at least 10,000 jobs are likely to be eliminated in total.

Meanwhile, from Zero Hedge:

Right after Texas Governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry spoke at a Politics and Eggs breakfast in Bedford, New Hampshire, an unknown gentlemen approaches a casual Perry like an Ian Flemming character, and proceeds to dead drop the following: "Bank of America... We will help you out"... and silently moves on. At least we know now who is funding what, and whose interests potential future president Perry will be paid to defend.



Full event can be found here. Before someone pulls it, that is.

Then, come to find out that a former Goldman Sachs VP, named Peter Simonyi (who previously worked for the SEC) changed his name to Peter Haller to lobby Congress from the inside. He ended up working as a top staffer for Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) on the Oversight Committee, and went on to argue against regulations on Wall Street.

Read more...

Bill Gates, the Billionaires and Apocalyptic Philanthropy

In lieu of the bizarre weather we've experienced as of late, it may be of some interest to know that the United States government is conducting, at the very least, 66 geoengineering, and weather modification experiments in the western states, as well as in  Mexico and Canada according to NOAA.   However, "most are not listed due to their experimental nature, military classification, university experiments, and failures to notify NOAA by various states, counties, cities, weather modification companies, and private individuals and corporations who may all modifying your weather".

For instance, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG E) is conducting a weather modification program in Plymouth County, California, where they are enhancing the snow in one of the regions.  How do they enhance the snow?  Well, the electric company seeds the clouds, using chemicals such as acetone, silver iodide, etc.  That has created snow in the area...so much snow, in fact,  that it has inconvenienced and cost the community money to plow themselves out.  Not only that, the health effects are starting to show up, leaving many in the community, very ill. Because, what seeds the clouds, eventually falls to earth. 

That's not all. There is the ripple effect. The communities nearby are suffering from drought, low water levels, rationing, low crop yields, etc. Even small-scale weather modification that promotes rain or snow in one area, will always occur at the detriment of another area.  Nevertheless, many of these programs are not small -- they are massive, such as the one based out of Idaho, a state that's 83,000 square miles, but the specific program is  modifying 178,000 square miles!

Here's the thing. There are no laws governing weather modification.  Any uber-wealthy idiot, can hire any company it wants to conduct one, or many of these weather modification experiments, for any reason. Which brings us to Bill Gates, who is, in addition to vaccinating the world down to zero, funds all types of weather modification endeavors, such as, cloud whitening programs (adding finely milled salt into man-made clouds to make them brighter in order to reflect the sunlight away from the earth), hurricane modification, and several more precipitation enhancement, Solar Radiation Management (controlling sunlight before it reaches the planet), and water management programs just to name a few.

Texas is the # 1 weather modified state (followed by CA, CO, UT, WY) in the US, with its many associations: West Texas Weather Modification Association in San Angelo;  South Texas Weather Modification Association in San Antonio;  Southwest Rain Enhancement Association; the Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District (Cloud seeding operations); Edwards Aquifer Authority (EAA); Trans Pecos Weather Modification Association; Southern Ogallala Aquifer Rain (SOAR) Program, etc., which might explain Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who has introduced a bill - every year since 2005 - that allows anyone to mitigate or modify your weather without public notification, consent, oversight or debate. The last one, U.S. Senate Bill S601, was not passed in 2010, thanks to Rosalind Peterson's successful lobbying efforts, but it is highly likely that Senator Hutchison will again introduce this bill in the Senate in 2011. This bill could also be added as an amendment to other legislation and passed. The implication for agriculture, watersheds, water supplies, and who will receive the benefits or the negative consequences are hidden from public view.

So, what's the motive, here? Well, profit and power, of course. Specifically, the untapped potential of water privatization - corporate control of water access. And, how do you make something profitable? Create scarcity.  Not to mention the global warming scheme that will result in a multi-trillion dollar industry. Then, there is the weaponization of weather. The U.S. Military has been involved in weather modification for half a century, and the extent to which they have progressed is still unknown.

"Water, thou hast no taste, no colour, no odour; canst not be defined, art relished while ever mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself ... Of the riches that exist in the world, thou art the rarest and also the most delicate thou so pure within the bowels of the earth!". - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Links:

U.S. NAVY 5-YEAR WARFARE TESTING PROGRAMS A NEW THREAT TO THE PACIFIC, GULF OF MEXICO and ATLANTIC MARINE MAMMALS

Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025

Agricultural Defense Coalition

‘‘Weather Mitigation Research and Development Policy Authorization Act of 2009’’.

Weather Modification Operations in California October 1, 1969 - September 30, 1970

Privatization Tidal Wave IMF/World Bank Water Policies and the Price Paid by the Poor

Why Big Banks May Be Trying to Buy up Your Public Water System

World Bank Water Privatization Policies Benefit Corporations, Not Developing Countries

Weather Modification Laws in the USA

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What is it About Florida and Texas?

Let's face it, even by contemporary US standards, both Florida and Texas have a ruthless and callous record on human rights issues. To start with, both states lead the nation, in numbers of people on death row; in numbers of people executed, and in numbers of innocent people, wrongly convicted. Add to that list: abuse of power by TSA agents, and Taser happy police.

Could it be the influence of the Bush Brothers? After all, the Bush family is notoriously known for its historic abuse of power. However, Texas and Florida were not exactly panaceas for humanitarians before the Bush brothers assumed leadership.

Anyway, once again, the state of Florida provides a shining example for all. Meg McClain spoke out about TSA abuse and "random" selection and the almighty TSA agents from Hell called in twelve police officers, and seven TSA agents; handcuffed her to a chair; gave her a 30-minute lecture on terrorism, and ripped up her plane ticket! Then, this poor girl, who couldn't even put on her shoes, was escorted out of the airport by 19 thugs security officials.



Harmless 18-year old man Tased for jogging naked. 

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Escalating Violence Across the Border.

Hello? United States? Terror is here. Real terror, that is. The kind that kidnaps, tortures and kills we, the people. Hello?

Where is the "War on Terror" when you really need it? For that matter, where is the "War on Drugs"? Oh, that's right, we're too busy fighting wars over 10,000 miles away; arresting phony underwear/shoe bombers, terminal cancer victims, harmless tokers,  elderly Glaucoma patients,  and worrying ourselves sick of illegal immigrants (as if tougher immigration laws will stop drug cartels) to deal with the viscous terror that's right next door. Not to mention, eliminating those nasty drug cartels might eat into the politically favored class profits.

Yet, high schools and middle schools across South Texas are becoming fertile ground for drug cartels looking to recruit young smugglers.



The death of  author Peter McWilliams.

The federal government denied him the medication he needed to live and thrive.

* In 1996 Peter was diagnosed with cancer and AIDS
* The medications he needed to treat these diseases caused extreme vomiting, and he could not keep them down long enough for them to work
* That same year, Proposition 215 legalized medical marijuana in California
* Under the recommendation of four physicians, Peter started using marijuana.
* The marijuana controlled his nausea, restored his appetite, and allowed his medications to work

Marijuana saved Peter's life, for the moment. This led him to fund research into medical marijuana and to start a business supplying it to buyer's cooperatives. The DEA took notice, raided and trashed his home, and even confiscated his computer, which contained the manuscript of his latest book.

Peter was charged with being a "drug kingpin!" And then, he was hamstrung, legally. The federal judge in the case took away his defense, barring any mention of . . .

* California's medical marijuana law
* his terminal illness
* how medical marijuana allowed him to keep down his medication and prolong his life

While the legal process dragged on, the government prevented Peter from using the marijuana that controlled his nausea. Peter was required to pass drug tests. He complied, even though his life was at risk, because . . .

* Peter's mother and brother had to put up their homes as collateral to post his bail
* If he failed the test, their homes would have been seized by the government

Peter's health deteriorated until he died at the age of 50. The vomiting had taken a tremendous toll on his alimentary canal, as well as his heart, and even his teeth. Despite the suffering, he never lost his sense of humor. And the reason I most admired him was that he felt sympathy for his tormentors, rather than rage.

Marijuana saved Peter's life, but the War on Drugs destroyed it.

Peter's most noted book was "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do." It promoted the idea that each person can do whatever they please with their own bodies and property, so long as they don't interfere with the right of others to do the same.

Links:

The battle of the US-Mexico frontier

Springbreak in Mexico could be deadly.

Mexican 'narco culture' glamorizes drug lifestyle

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Who Really Profits From Drug Cartel Wars?

"Follow the money", "Deep Throat" tells Woodward in the film, "All the President's Men", or as former British newspaper journalist, Simon Jenkins, once said, "Follow the dirt and it leads to money. Follow the money and it leads to power. This maxim has rarely let me down."

Well, follow the money on the "War on Drugs" and it will expose a frightening truth: the drug cartels depend on a network of guardian angels and backers who come from where else: the ruling elites.

Catherine Austin Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing (HUD) under the Bush Administration, and CEO of Solari, told Mel Fabregas from the Veritas show in a great interview in 2009 that one 14-year old kid in the projects can generate up to $10 million for the capital markets. How? Here's the example she used:

Let's say this 14-year old from the projects nets $100,000 in drug sales. That money must be laundered somewhere, right? Yes. In this case, it's laundered through a fast food franchise that’s traded on the stock market at $15/share. That transforms the $100,000 to $1.5 million in stock market value. Moreover, if that money is leveraged with debt and derivatives that amount can increase up to as much as $10 million. In other words, one 14-year old kid from the projects can generate up to $10 million in the capital markets for the privileged class.

In addition, that kid, if he avoids being shot and killed in the next couple of years has the potential to make even more money for the capital markets. How?  More than likely, he will face incarceration, where he's not only out of the way, (after he gets too smart for his own good); he will generate even more money for the prison industrial complex. Why? There is a $25,000 gain for each person in prison.

So, recycling these kids in and out of prison serves three purposes: Number one, the profits speak for themselves; number two, it keeps this segment of the population “dumb” and desperate, and number three, it deprives small business of the upcoming work-force, or the human capital, necessary to thrive; therefore making it easier for corporate take-over.

Fitts also explained, and, even more importantly, proved we the people's complicity, which eventually became “Narco dollars for beginners” how organized crime influences business and government.

She addressed a group of members of the Spiritual Frontiers Foundation International, who were having a conference of how to help our society evolve spiritually, and she began by telling them that someone from the   Department of Justice told a reporter she knows that the US banking and financial system launders $500 billion to a trillion dollars a year in illegal money, which includes narcotics trafficking, financial fraud and tax evasion

She then asked the audience, "What would happen if America stopped being the global leader and stopped laundering $500 billion to a trillion dollars a year in illegal money?

They responded that the stock market would go down because that money would go to other markets around the world, and that we would have trouble financing the government deficit, and our taxes would go up and/or our government checks would stop.

Fitts replied, "Okay, imagine a big red button up here on the lectern. If you push this button, you can stop all hard narcotics trafficking in your neighborhood, your city, town, county, state and  your country tomorrow. Who'll push the button?"

Out of 100 people dedicated to evolving our society spiritually, only one would push the button.

She asked the other 99 why they wouldn’t push the button.

They responded: "We don't want our mutual funds to go down. We don't want our government checks to stop, nor do we want our taxes to go up."

Fitts has asked that question to audiences all over the US, and the only time 80% of the audience responded that they would push the red button occurred in TN, in 2008. Why is 80% majority so important? The historical rule of thumb states that in order to shift policy, an 80% consensus is required.

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More Mexican cartel updates: 2/21/11:

Innocent victims of bloody drug cartel turf wars is normal every day news in Mexico. Spanning 72 hours, starting last Thursday, 53 people were killed in Ciudad Juarez

In the first 40 days of 2011, Juarez is averaging eight homicides per day, Sandoval said. Also, in February, at least 24 women have been killed in 20 days.

In addition, last Friday, 13 people were killed in Acapulco, four of whom, authorities believe, were alive and tortured before they were dropped from a bridge. The worst torture was of a man who was decapitated; scalped with his face skinned. This spate of attacks on taxis in the Mexican resort city of Acapulco occurred hours before the Mexican Open tennis tournament was scheduled to start. Acapulco has been the scene of , and taxi drivers have often been targeted for extortion or recruited by the gangs to act as lookouts or transport drugs.

On February 14, Gunmen killed 18 people in Tamaulipas, a state in northeastern Mexico,

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Mexican cartel updates: December 2010
 
Only death would stop her from protesting the impunity with which criminals operate in Mexico

Two years ago, Marisela Escobedo's daugher was killed in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Her daughter's boyfriend confessed to the crime, but a court exonerated him earlier this year. When a second trial convicted the boyfriend, Sergio Barraza, of murder and sentenced him to 50 years in prison, he had already fled and gone into hiding.

Escobedo had actively protested the decision ever since, rather ominously stating that only death would stop her from protesting the impunity with which criminals operate in Mexico, and especially Chihuahua -- the home state of deadly Ciudad Juarez.

Now, Marisela Escobedo's protests have been silenced.

She was shot and killed by an assassin on Thursday, and the episode was caught on tape.

Mexico's drug war: Number of dead passes 30,000

...12,456 people had been registered killed in drug-related violence so far this year, compared to 9,600 in 2009, bringing the total to 30,196 since President Calderon took office in December 2006.

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(Left) People clean a blood stained patio at a home in the northern city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Saturday Oct. 23, 2010. At least 13 young people were shot dead and 15 wounded in an attack on this house late Friday during a 15-year-old boy's birthday party. (AP Photo/Raymundo Ruiz)

The latest, in Mexico’s increasingly bloody drug war, are a series of massacres.  

Gunmen stormed a 15-year old's birthday party, last Saturday, October 23,  killing 13 people, the youngest, only 9-years old, wounding 20 more, in the second "drug cartel" massacre at a party this month, in Ciudad Juarez 2-days later, in Tijuana, 13 people were lined up and executed inside a drug rehabilitation clinic by gunmen who stormed the building. The next day, 15 people at a Mexican car wash.

Ciudad Juarez is crippled by escalating warring drug cartels, as they battle security forces and each other over smuggling routes into the United States.

The money trail has already lead to Citibank, Wachovia, Bank of America, etc. The banks play a critical role to the continuing success of the cartels as they allow the drug trade to flourish by providing essential financing.

Alternatively, the banks could serve as part of the solution - when hell freezes over, maybe, for only they have the power to  deal a crippling blow to the cartels.

The egregious hypocrisy prevalent in the current relationships between the cartels, the global political and economic powers who profit immensely from this huge industry, facilitated by the "War on Drugs" is almost too much to comprehend, but comprehend we must if we want the slaughter to stop.

The drug trade is amongst the most, if not thee most, lucrative of all industries in the world, and has continued to escalate through decades of  failing to account for this massive revenue.

Links:

Survivor: Drug gang massacred 72 migrants in northern Mexico

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Fed Up! Fight to Save America From Texas.

More specifically, Rick Perry, a man who clearly stands for injustice, as he not only proudly took the "Texecutioner" title away from George Bush, with 225 executions under his belt; in addition,  did everything he could to cover up evidence that would clear an innocent man, and save him from state sanctioned execution. Yet, this man, on top of winning a third term, fully expects to lead GOP governors group.

“Texans elect folks like me. The kind of guy who goes jogging in the morning, packing a Ruger .380 with laser sights and loaded with hollow-point bullets and shoots a coyote that is threatening his daughter’s dog.”

And the sad part is he's right, they do. He is now entering his tenth year as governor. He will soon be the longest-serving chief executive in Texas history.

I didn't think Texas could get any dumber, but apparently, dumbing down Texas was/is Rick Perry's strategy for staying in office forever. What else could explain his reelection for a third term, with a state budget deficit of $25 billion? Not to mention the highest uninsured rate in the nation with plans to increase that rate as lawmakers in Texas plan to use the  $25 billion shortfall in the state budget over the next two years to impose sweeping cuts to social services, including a massive cut to public schools and universities.  Yes, to make Texans even dumber!

Rich Perry and conservative Texan lawmakers want to ditch Medicaid due to its expansion under The Affordable Care Act, which will expand the program rapidly by subsidizing insurance for all Americans up to 133 percent of the poverty line. Yes, to make Texans even less insured!

Why is Texas bad for America?

“You prioritize what is important to the people in the state and then you reduce spending without raising taxes.” - Rick Perry

As Robert Perkinson, author of Texas Tough, said "Texas is America's new bellweather state...ground zero of the prison boom." The state's ideology has become the template for today's America, and its priorities, America's priorities.

In a sign of how far the far right has regained its confidence since its thrashing in 2008, in April, TX State board of education voted to radically overhaul their social studies curriculum that influences textbook purchases nationwide. Out went Thomas Jefferson, whose deism questioned the piety of the founders; in came Jefferson Davis who fought for state's rights. Less noticed was the elimination of justice from the list of virtues Texas school children have to master, as well as the phrase, responsibility for the common good. Launching the latest salvo in the nation's ceaseless culture war, but also brought the curriculum in line with the state's unequal social order. With its laissez faire corporate climate and anemic social services Texas simultaneously leads the nation in carbon emissions and children without health insurance.


Texas is wide open for business as the governor's economic development office proclaims but it's always had an uneasy relationship with lady justice. This is clearest of all in its criminal justice system which historically has always privileged ferocity over fairness...revenge over rehabilitation. -- Robert Perkinson

We, the People need to wake up to the thugs that have infiltrated our state and federal government. We need to stop voting them into office. However, there is no excuse for the Texans who voted Rick Perry into office for a third term...they are no better than he is. Having said that, I realize there are many good and decent Texans who should not be lumped in with the Texans so eager to follow psychopathic leaders.

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The Civics Paradox

Immigration has long been a matter of concern to US citizens, however, recently, between rising level of illegal immigrants, state of our economy, and issues of national security, this topic has taken on an intensity that rivals that of previous times.

The United States is one of few countries in the world that grants birthright citizenship - citizenship based on where a person is born.  Many in their crusade against immigration, have zeroed in on restricting this "birthright", especially However, so it's no surprise that Dan Burton (R-IL) introduced H.R. 5002, The No Sanctuary for Illegals Act which would limit birthright citizenship to three conditions, illegal immigrant parents not being one of them.

They are called "anchor babies" -- the children born in the United Citizenship States of illegal immigrant parents -- and pressure is growing to change the meaning of the *14th Amendment so as to deny them automatic citizenship.

At the same time, we're raising the bar on immigration; American citizens are more ignorant than ever.  Barely 1/3 of all Americans can name the three branches of American government, much less tell you how each branch works, 2/3 of all Americans can't pass the citizenship test and less than half the states require courses in civics/government to graduate high school. When No Child Left Behind was implemented due to America's bottom of the barrel test scores in math and science amongst developed countries, many more school boards across the country cut civics/government out completely.  Which raises the question, if American citizens, increasingly, don't have a clue, and it's becoming tougher for immigrants to become citizens, where does that leave us?  

Of course, you can be certain that GOP politics is a key factor behind the focus on immigration. "Wedge issue" strategy -  essentially exploiting specific hostilities to mobilize their base - is many times the Republican central plan for achieving their agenda. And the more ignorant Americans are, the easier it is to skew public understanding and feed them misinformation.

The frightening aspect, in an atmosphere of public ignorance and apathy, is that liars go unchecked; glitzy superficial, sensationalized 24/7 news streams replace real journalism; truth is replaced with propaganda; and ultimately, the unenlightened masses ring the death knell of democracy.

So,  is the decline of civic learning in American schools a coincidence or a conspiracy, or a combination of the two?  Is it reasonable to deduct that if the outcome benefits a certain group of people, that that outcome was planned, or is it more complicated?

* The 14th Amendment to the Constitution affirms that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens, regardless of the immigration status of their parents. Following the Civil War and the emancipation of the slaves, the 14th Amendment restated the longstanding principle of birthright citizenship. This right was temporarily erased by the Supreme Court's "Dred Scott" (1857) decision that denied birthright citizenship to American born children of slaves, essentially overruled by the 14th amendment in 1868.

Links: 
American Immigration Council - The American Immigration Council (formerly the American Immigration Law Foundation) was established in 1987 as an IRS designated 501(c)(3), tax-exempt, not-for-profit educational, charitable organization. The mission of the American Immigration Council is to strengthen America by honoring our immigrant history and shaping how Americans think and act towards immigration now and in the future. [...] Their motto is: Honoring our immigrant past; shaping our immigrant future.

Center For Civic Education

icivics  - Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor web site and interactive civics curriculum in hopes of "fostering a deeper understanding of American government among schoolchildren".

Tea Party Jesus "The words of Christians in the mouth of Christ." The "words" are quotes from conservatives who has Jesus saying things like: "I cannot believe that a bunch of lacy-drawered, limp-wristed people could do what those men have done in the past" regarding gays in the military. And "We could put landmines along the border. I know it sounds crazy" regarding how to deter illegals.

Texas Republicans Join Arizona's Hard-line Anti-Immigrant Stance

"They also approved a slate of legislative priorities that calls for bringing Arizona-like immigration laws to Texas, specifically making it a Class A misdemeanor for an undocumented worker to be in the state and requiring law enforcement to verify citizenship when a person is arrested."

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Glen Beck University of Unintelligible "Professors".

Where "weak minds are servilely crouched".

David Barton, a Texas Evangelical who appeared as an "expert" witness in the Texas Board of Education textbook hearings, a frequent guest on Glenn Beck's program, a "professor" at Beck University and who served as the chair of the Texas GOP, launched an effort with Newt Gingrich on behalf of Sharron Angle in Nevada, and stumped for John McCain in 2008 says homosexuality should be regulated.

"So if I got to the Centers for Disease Control and I'm concerned about health, I find some interesting stats there and this should tell me something about health.

Homosexual/bi-sexual individuals are seven times more likely to contemplate or commit suicide. Oooh, that doesn't sound very healthy.

Homosexuals die decades earlier than heterosexuals. That doesn't sound healthy.

Nearly one-half of practicing homosexuals admit to 500 or more sex partners and nearly one-third admit to a thousand or more sex partners in a lifetime.

I mean, you go through all this stuff, sounds to me like that's not very healthy. Why don't we regulate homosexuality?" -- David Barton,

I do believe Thomas Jefferson saw Beck and Barton in his crystal ball when he said the following:

“Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck.”
— Thomas Jefferson

“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.”— Thomas Jefferson

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Yikes! Terror Babies!

Who elects these "people"?  Oh, that's right. Texas.  Well that explains everything. 

It's scary when real life politicians make fictional Saturday Night Live characters look normal. 

Why not just elect this guy? At least he makes more sense, but you have to admit, Representative "Terror Babies" Riddle was far more entertaining.

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Scaring White People for Fun and Profit

Rachel Maddow claims  the right-winged "professional hysteria mongers," in what she calls "anti-immigrant-scare-white-people-politics" that scares "white people for fun and profit", is not only politically expedient, it’s also increasingly easy to do."

Tea Party Nation created a new online forum where they are asking tea partiers to post stories about undocumented immigrants. In an email sent to supporters, they say:

“If [sic] have been the victim of a crime by an illegal, or if your business has gone under because your competition uses illegals, or if you have lost your job to illegals, we want to know about it… We need to get the true story out about illegal immigration and we need your help to do it.”

In addition they included, "if anyone sees undocumented immigrants acting out, like burning an American flag or hanging a Mexican flag above an American one, they also would like photos, but “acts of decency by people without papers are disqualified from this forum,” Maddow says.

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What do Texas and Uganda Have in Common?

While the Obama Administration plans to expand family and medical leave to same-sex parents, and other non-'traditional' families, the Texas GOP wants to take a page from Uganda's "kill the gays" bill linked to C-Street's The Family,  and criminalize gay marriage and reinstate the sodomy ban.  In effect, Texas wants to punish those who support gay rights.

The 2010 State Republican Party Platform in Texas supports laws that criminalize sodomy and suggests that straight people who support same-sex marriage should be penalized with jail time.The GOP platform was quoted as openly stating:

“We oppose the legalization of sodomy. We demand that Congress exercise its authority granted by the U.S. constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy,” the GOP platform reads. Meaning that even though the U.S. Supreme Court overturned sodomy laws last decade (ironically in a case that stemmed from Texas), Texas Republicans would like the state to have the power to criminalize LGBT folks for having sex.

“We support legislation that would make it a felony to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple and for any civil official to perform a marriage ceremony for such,” reads the GOP platform.

If a straight person were to aid and abet a gay couple with marriage in Texas, th GOP would like to see that person serve mandatory jail time.

“We believe that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases,” the platform reads.

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The Murderer Shall Surely Be Put to Death Unless He's Rich and Powerful.

Texas has executed 19 people already in 2009, nearly half of the 39 executions in the US this year, and has executed 442 people since 1982, many of which are surrounded in controversy, especially Todd Willingham, the innocent man executed by Texas in 2004.

Khristian Oliver is the next man to face Texas sanctioned execution on November 5. He was found guilty of or a murder committed during a burglary in 1999. However, when deciding on whether Oliver should be put to death or life in prison, jurors read from scripture and this is what they read aloud:

"The murderer shall surely be put to death" and "The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer."

Another juror highlighted passages which she showed to a fellow juror: "And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, the murderer shall surely be put to death."

One juror said, "the Bible is truth from page 1 to the last page" and that "if civil law and biblical law were in conflict, the latter should prevail." 80% of the jury had "brought scripture into the deliberation".

A US federal appeals court acknowledged last year that the jurors' use of the Bible amounted to an "external influence" prohibited under the US Constitution, but nonetheless upheld the death sentence anyway.

If this man, who was sentenced to death by scripture, were a man of influence, power, status or wealth, that the federal appeals court would not have upheld the death sentence. In fact, he almost certainly would not have been sentenced to death in the first place.

Murder is defined as the unlawful killing of one human by another, especially under conditions characterized by deliberation premeditated malice. Premeditated is the operative word here and there is nothing more premeditated or deliberate than state sanctioned execution. Remove the word "unlawful" from the definition of murder and the death penalty would be the ultimate embodiment of murder.

However, just because something is "lawful" doesn't make it right or good. Laws are often created in the interests of the ruling class or elite, therefore the word "unlawful" means very little when you consider the mechanisms of power, and that the law itself that often becomes nothing more than a weapon wielded to maintain power and the kind of social order most beneficial to the ruling elite.

Double Tragedies: Victims Speak Out Against the Death Penalty For People with Severe Mental Illness

Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights (MVFHR) is an international, non- governmental organization of family members of victims of criminal murder, terrorist killings, state executions, extrajudicial assassinations, and “disappearances” working to oppose the death penalty from a human rights perspective.

The blog of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights.

About 500 people attended the 10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty on October 24, 2009 at the Texas Capitol in Austin, Texas.

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Measure of a Society: How Will America be Judged?

Jimmy Carter once said, "The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens. As Americans, we are blessed with circumstances that protect our human rights and our religious freedom, but for many people around the world, deprivation and persecution have become a way of life."

People around the world? How about people right here in our own country? We have a system in place that rewards and advocates for big business at the expense of the American people. For-profit business interests is our society's number one concern, even when human lives are at stake, or the quality of those lives.

Just ask the woman with breast cancer, who was denied insurance the day before her scheduled double mastectomy.

Just ask Wendell Potter, the whistle-blower against the insurance industry and former chief spokesman for Cigna Healthcare, who when testifying before congress said,

"I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick—all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors. [...]"The thing they fear most is a single-payer plan. They fear even the public insurance option being proposed; they'll pull out all the stops they can to defeat that to try to scare people into thinking that embracing a public health insurance option would lead down the slippery slope toward socialism ... Putting a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor. They've used those talking points for years, and they've always worked."

And what about our incarceration rate - 2.3 million behind bars, as of 2008 - that makes the US, "prisonhouse of nations", a phrase coined by Mumia Abu-Jamal(not advocating for case, but I believe his phrase to be accurate), as well as our top ranking execution rate, following only China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia in the number of executions in 2008. Is jailing non-threatening, non violent citizens by the boatload, simply another way to line the pockets of industry?

Just ask the millions of people arrested and jailed for possessing marijuana, a plant, far less toxic than alcohol and most prescription drugs, not to mention, its many medicinal properties. Would the legalization of this easily home-grown plant cause the pharmaceutical industry to lose the unconscionable profits they rake in year after year?

Just ask Sally Harpold, grandmother of triplets. She bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband at one pharmacy. Less than seven days later, she bought a box of Mucinex-D cold medicine for her adult daughter at and other pharmacy, thereby purchasing 3.6 grams total of pseudoephedrine in a week’s time. Four months later, she ended up in handcuffs, arrested for her two purchases.

What about the death penalty?

Just ask the poor and the powerless, as nine times out of ten they are the ones executed.

Or, more specifically, ask Texas, which has accounted for 69% of all executions in the southern states since 1976 and 39% of all executions in the nation during the same period. The spike in executions in Texas occurred during the reign of George W. Bush who signed the death warrants of 151 men and 1 woman during his term.

Rick Perry broke the record of his predecessor when he presided over his 200th execution in June of 2009. Not only that, Perry just fired three from the board ready to probe the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, the one he denied a reprieve even after a detailed report by an arson expert said the evidence that Mr. Willingham had set the fire was flimsy and inconclusive. On September 18, 2009 Perry was quoted as saying that there was "clear and compelling, overwhelming evidence that he was in fact the murderer of his children"

Another measure of society is the way the culture disposes of their dead. If that's true, what will future historians say about us?

Just ask Detroit, too broke to bury their dead.. The number of unclaimed corpses at the Wayne County morgue in Detroit is at a record high, having tripled since 2000. 2000? You mean since George W. Bush took office? What a coincidence. Anyway, people just don't have the money to bury their dead and as unemployment in the area is approaching 28%, and many people, can't afford last rites; the other problem is that the county's $21,000 annual budget to bury unclaimed bodies ran out.

Jimmy Carter was not the only one who said the worth of society can be measured by the manner in which it treats its weakest member.

It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life-the sick, the needy and the handicapped." ~Hubert Humphrey

"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering the prisons"
~Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." - Mahatma Ghandi

"Any society, any nation, is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members -- the last, the least, the littlest." ~Cardinal Roger Mahony,

The greatness of America is in how it treats its weakest members: the elderly, the infirm, the handicapped, the underprivileged, the unborn.
~Bill Federer

"A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members and among the most vulnerable are surely the unborn and the dying,"
~Pope John Paul II

If one believes that the worth and dignity of a civilization is judged by the way its weakest members are treated, we cannot help but look back in shame at our past. However, although we can do nothing to change the past, we can make up for it by setting a new course for our future. Currently, as a nation, we value money more than life. People serve money...an entity that does not exist in and of itself, as it is nothing without people and the infrastructure to support it.

Before we change anything we must reclaim our humanity. Once we do that, the rest will fall into place.

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