Building toward serfdom’s return - by Paul Heise

America idealizes the middle class and denies the validity of an upper or governing class. Yet we have so structured our economy that all the increase in income since 1980 has gone to the already wealthy, undermining the idea of a governing middle class. The resulting inequality of income and wealth commits future generations to be divided into the wealthy and the workers, nobles and serfs.

Maldistribution of income is bad. It leads to a lack of opportunity and a pauperized middle class, to political corruption and for-sale politicians, to lower economic growth and to economic and political instability.

Using either income or wealth, the rich are getting richer, and the poor remain poor. The result has been great inequality and a disappearing middle class. The top 5 percent of families own 50 percent of American wealth. The top 20 percent owns 80 percent. The middle 40 percent share that last 20 percent. The bottom 20 percent has zero wealth, and everyone below the top 20 is going into debt.

It isn't just the CEOs hogging the income. The financial sector far outdoes them. From 1930 through the 1970s income became more equally distributed, but the trend has been in reverse since then. As recently as 1979, the top 1 percent of earners in the U. S. earned about 33 times what the lowest 20 percent earned. By 2000, this disparity had grown to more than 88 times as much. No other industrial country is as bad as the United States. The CIA reports that measures of income distribution in America put us in a class with Turkmenistan, Nepal, Mexico and China.

The closest we get to redistribution of income are the entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and veterans benefits. But that is not where the problem is. Unequal income distribution ends up a more serious problem than the safety nets.

The word "entitlement" spells out the problem. Originally a "titled" person had a right to the income from some asset. The noble was entitled to it. Similarly, today a person can have a right or title to some income because of who they are rather than what they have produced. That is what a pension, trust fund or any other wealth really is — the right to an income stream.

As we concentrate ever-more wealth in the hands of an ever-smaller group, we also allocate to that group an ever larger share of our children and grandchildren's output. We are establishing a new, hereditary nobility.

The question is, how much of our children's income do we have a right to allocate? We commit future income to specific groups when we borrow and spend for any war or social programs or when we shift enormous wealth to Wall Streeters and to Silicon Valley and away from farmers and steelworkers. The offspring of the rich will have a legal right to a substantial portion of the output of our descendants.

Imagine a future world where a substantial portion of GDP is allocated not on the basis of productive capacity or other merit but on the basis of entitlements set generations before. That is where we are heading.

A serf is someone whose output is allocated in part to someone else as a property right. The serf gets what is left. Those with no entitlement, the serfs, will be condemned to glean the leftovers. These nobles of tomorrow will wallow in their entitled abundance.

It isn't just the money. Much wealth is passed on in the form of human capital that the wealthy are able to give their children through the superior schooling and enhanced opportunities that come with money. To overcome the unfairness of this, we have to find a way to give everyone an equal access to educational opportunity.

The Congress has just passed, with veto-proof majorities, a bill that grants World War II-type education benefits to present-day veterans. That would be a real start.

The GI Bill educational benefits were among the best investments this country ever made. It gave me a ticket to Georgetown University. We should again invest in our youth to meet the challenge of this new economy and new century. It is the only way I see to bridge the divide of income and wealth we have created over the past 30 years.

Unless we do, our vibrant capitalism will turn into a stagnant serfdom. We have to invest serious money in education. I mean like the amounts we spend on war — if we are to save our democracy and our capitalism.

 

A resident of Mt. Gretna, Heise holds a Ph.D. in economics and is professor emeritus of economics at Lebanon Valley College.

~ Source: Lebanon Daily News ~

 

Skolnick on Greenspan reported bribes and assistance to Bush in swindles

More than three hundred reportedly authentic secret Federal Reserve wire transfer records show how the Chairman of America's private central bank has apparently bribed and aided in corrupt deeds George Herbert Walker Bush and his family, all over a period of time. Later, Greenspan reportedly jointly with Bush and a swarm of major financial entities, derived a horrific benefit in a major gold swindle.

In clandestine meetings, over a period of months, the reportedly genuine documents were turned over to our research and investigation group by government officials clearly in an inside position to possess and confirm such data.

A conversation at one such meeting, "Tell Sherman, if you or he ever reveals our identity, we are all dead, everyone one of us. Also in jeopardy of life and limb would be more than eight others in key government and financial positions." Some of the records purport to have the wire transfer signature of A. Greenspan whose term as Commissar of the Federal Reserve was renewed in the new century. Because he is like a corrupt Soviet dictator, answerable to no one, we coined the term, "Alan Redspan".

The document delivery team were assured of confidentiality by our past record. As the founder/chairman of our group, Citizen's Committee to Clean Up the Courts, since 1963, I have been imprisoned some eight times in four decades, not for committing crimes, but for so-called "contempt of court", for refusing to reveal the identity of long-reliable sources of high-level corruption data turned over to us on the sly. Our sources, cross-checked with others, and backed up by over one million documents already in our possession, have enabled us, over a period of decades, to set off, what some describe, as the biggest judicial bribery scandals in U.S. history.

Briefly stated, this includes the downfall we caused in 1969, of Illinois' highest tribunal, the Illinois Supreme Court, with half the high court being put to the wall. In the 1970s, our work led to the jailing for bribery of the highest level sitting federal judge in U.S. history, a federal appeals judge in Chicago who had also been former State Governor and his aide, former head of the Illinois Department of Revenue, the tax collectors. 7th Circuit Federal Appeals Judge Otto Kerner, Jr., went on all the media and said "Skolnick is a liar". Kerner died an ex-convict, convicted as I accused him to his face, as is our long-time policy. From 1983 to 1993, our work set off a series of scandals, by which 20 local judges and 40 lawyers were sent to prison for bribery, including the Chief Judge of the Traffic Court, who in a taped interview said, "Mr. Skolnick, you are imagining things, there is no corruption in this courthouse."

The Federal Reserve wire transfer data, which is also corroborated by matters already in our possession, among other things, confirms the following:

[1] That George Herbert Walker Bush, starting back at the time he was Vice President and continuing long thereafter, reportedly corruptly benefitted from Billions and Billions of dollars transferred at the behest, of among others, Alan Greenspan, to private corporations worldwide, in which the Elder Bush apparently has a beneficial interest, and/or is a major stock or bond holder, and/or is a kingpin therein, in other capacities. Included are enterprises in Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Hong Kong, Denmark, England, Red China, Taiwan, Japan, and Germany, among others. Some of the purported secret wire transfers of massive amounts were jointly for the Elder Bush and his brother Prescott, a financial broker in New England. According to published accounts, Prescott Bush arranged vast, unsavory deals with the Japanese mafia, the Yakuza, as well as dictator-types in Red China including reportedly with the top officials of the Red Chinese Secret Police [who also operate greatly in North America].

[2] Holding as well a large beneficial interest, and/or as major stock or bond holder in those accounts has been Jackson Stephens, the Little Rock-based bond broker, largest such operation outside of Wall Street. Stephens, tied reportedly to the ethnic Chinese gangsters like the Riady family interwoven with Clinton and Ollie North and the dope traffic, has been a major backer of Sludge Willie. The nefarious worldwide reputed corrupt deals of the Stephens family have been covered up by Alan Redspan and what some call the highly secretive, conspiratorial Federal Reserve.

[3] Some of the firms and enterprises to which the massive wire transfer assets were sent, are reportedly CIA proprietary operations set up by Bush as the head and former head of America's secret political police. [Now a Chicago-based bankruptcy expert, William A. Brandt, Jr., has been a worldwide expert in quietly terminating CIA proprietaries once their espionage function is completed, as shown by documents released under Freedom of Information by the U.S. Justice Department. Brandt's activities overlapped those of the Elder Bush.]

[4] Some of the billions and billions of dollars of reputed wire transfers went for the beneficial interest of the Elder Bush, and his son Neil, an official of a CIA proprietary, disguised as Denver-based Silverado Savings & Loan Association. The S & L went under and Neil Bush should have been sent to prison for causing the downfall by reportedly misusing large amounts of federal-insured thrift agency funds. On the other hand, as accused in stories in the press in Spain, the Elder Bush and his sons George W. Bush [Texas Governor] and Jeb Bush [Florida] Governor and Jeb's wife, a native of Columbia, are reportedly incriminated through huge money laundering of dope proceeds through banks owned by criminals in Spain. Dope proceeds reportedly from Columbia, Morocco, Portugal, and Italy. We publicized the quiet arrest in Chicago in January, 2000, of the reputed Bush family cocaine bank money laundry wizard, Giorgio Pelossi, a prominent Swiss accountant. Visit our website: http://www.skolnicksreport.com for the details.

The Elder Bush has been with the CIA since at least 1959, when he helped set up Zapata Petroleum Co., later called Zapata Offshore, with upwards of 600 branches worldwide in international hotspots for the reported purpose of gathering intelligence for the spy agency. Some news sources have contended that Zapata's offshore drilling rigs, located beyond the U.S. jurisdiction limit, are reported centers for transferring large quantities of illicit drugs and other contraband.

[5]Some of the reportedly huge secret wire transfers were for, or with the Elder Bush jointly with the Queen of England, through her accounts in the British Monarchy's Coutts Bank, London. The secret account numbers are contained in some of the more than 300 apparently authentic Federal Reserve wire transfer records. The British Monarchy has long been accused as being worldwide kingpins in the narcotics traffic, going back 150 years starting with the Opium Wars in China.

[6] Others of the more than 300 documents, relate to a situation started in the 1970s, when the Elder Bush arranged to overthrow the Iraqi government by political assassination. Bush helped install Saddam Hussein. Others of those and other documents relate to the decade, 1980 to 1990, when the Elder Bush was a secret private business partner of Saddam Hussein in extorting billions of dollars per year from the weak sheikdoms in the Persian Gulf---oil industry kick-backs, to supposedly assure security. A little-known Federal lawsuit in Chicago dealt with the secret partner of Saddam Hussein, namely George Herbert Walker Bush. I and my associates were the only journalists attending the federal appeals court hearing. I later did an exclusive group of interviews with the participants, confirming that Bush and Saddam were private business partners in extortion of the sheikdoms. Only one populist paper dared publish the details in 1991 of my interviews on the federal case.

In a typical sort of falling out of business partners, Bush suckered Saddam Hussein into seizing a portion of Kuwait long challenged by Saddam as being a Iraqi province and part of Saddam's oilfields. Bush used a top U.S. official to mislead Saddam into thinking the U.S. would not intervene in this local quarrel with the former British colony. Bush was the one, on behalf of U.S. oil drilling interests, that helped develop the Kuwaiti oilfields, following the 1961 relinquishing of British sovereignty. In its simplest form, the 1990-91, Persian Gulf conflict was a falling out of private business partners.

~ more... ~

 

RFK assassination information

Great post on the Real History blog.

Report: Billions in defense spending unchecked

Pentagon auditors say billions of dollars in military spending is going unchecked because they are having trouble keeping pace with the ever-expanding defense budget and combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a recent report, the Defense Department inspector general estimates that nearly half of the military's $316 billion weapons budget went unchecked last year because the IG's office lacked the manpower. Whereas 10 years ago when a single auditor would have reviewed some $642 million in defense contracts, individual investigators are now charged with auditing more than $2 billion in spending.

The IG also has been stretching its staff to investigate corruption and fraud cases overseas, primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan where the military is hiring contractors to help run operations.

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Behind the rise in prices: The plan to torpedo the dollar - by Danny Schechter

Who do you think was one of the Bush Administration's key players on the economy?

If you say Paulson or Bernanke, you might be half right. But there's another no-name lurking around in the background who tends to be doing the wrong thing at every key moment in the covert history of the Bush (or should we day "Bush League") Republic.

His name is Jim Wilkinson. He helped organize the GOP "protest"/obstruction of the Miami election recount in 2000. He was the White House's key media spinner at the Doha Coalition Media Center in 2003. A reporter from Texas said he used techniques first perfected by Stalin. He was an architect of the Republican convention in New York in 2004. He was later dispatched to keep an eye on, and act as "dissembler-in-chief" for Condi Rice.

But at a crucial moment in the history of the Western world, Mr. "I work in the shadows" Wilkinson became chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, the Goldman Sachs embed in the Cabinet.

Operative Wilkinson was then given the assignment of monitoring the world's financial markets in a secret operation modeled no doubt on the great intelligence plan that produced the Iraq War.

His qualifications for this historic role?

See above.

As Mike Whitney reported for Information Clearing House at the end of October in 2006 -- a day before Halloween -- the US was then engineering the drop in the dollar to "improve competitiveness" -- i.e. subsidize US exports in a flawed attempt to reduce the growing balance of trade gap. Was it a trick or treat? Read on.

The result was summed up in his headline: "The U.S. Dollar is kaput. Confidence in the currency is eroding by the day."

Whitney saw then what our media has still yet to report or understand.

"The financial crisis that we now face was created by design. It is intended to destroy the labor movement, crush the middle class, quash Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, reduce our foreign debt by 50 or 60%, force a restructuring of America's debt, privatize all public assets and resources, and create a new regime of austerity measures which will divert more wealth to the banking and corporate establishment."

This was months before the sub-prime meltdown in August 2007, or the more recent hike in food prices and oil prices. Their plan, blessed by business and the banks, was implemented step by step. The consequence was intended.

News, as we know, passes by so fast, and unless a story is repeated ad nauseam, no one remembers it or looks for the context and background of breaking developments.

Whitney referenced Richard Daughty's prescient article, "The Phase of Impact." According to Daughty, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Dept. have already manned the battle stations.

Here's an excerpt:

"Mr. Paulson, the Secretary of the Treasury, is, by virtue of his ascension to the throne, now the head of the shadowy President's Working Group of Financial Markets (which was created by Presidential Order 12631) and he is insisting that they meet more often, namely every 6 weeks!


This whole Working Group thing was originally set up as a fallback, ad-hoc, if-then defense to deal with possible economic emergencies, but now they are routinely meeting every 6 weeks. He has even ordered Jim Wilkinson, his chief of staff, to 'oversee the creation of a Treasury Command Center to track markets world-wide and serve as an operations base in a crisis"! (Wall Street Journal) World-wide!!

The American government is moving to take control of the world-wide economy as the result of an anticipated crisis? Yikes!" 


Now let's fast-forward to the present, well after this widely foreseen crisis erupted. As oil prices climb, the public is angry. And who do they mostly blame -- the oil companies and the oil-producing states, of course. They have no clue that this crisis was the consequence of decisions made by the Bush Administration to devalue the dollar with its "crisis manager" Jim Wilkinson playing a central role.

Political writer Jerry Policoff questioned the "politicized polls" on who is responsible for the oil hikes. He noted that most people and pollsters don't realize that the fall of the dollar precipitated all of this.

I asked him if he thought this squeeze had been orchestrated.

His response:

"I don't think there is any doubt about that, and the Saudis said as much when Bush asked them to rev up production to bring down the price. Their reaction was pretty much that the U.S. should stop undermining the value of its own dollar before asking other countries to take a financial hit on oil."

And sure enough, once again, as AP reported last Friday, President Bush "failed to win the help he sought from Saudi Arabia to relieve skyrocketing American gas prices."

The President's own bombast was also faulted for driving oil prices higher, as Bill Scher noted, "Bush's saber-rattling with Iran raises concerns of war and more disruption of oil supplies, which prompts speculators to raise prices."

A day later, Paulson was asked what he was going to do to strengthen the dollar. He waffled -- claiming a "strong dollar" is important but then changing the subject to "market fundamentals" in a speech to pump up CONfidence. (The first three letters of that word gave the real mission away.) He avoided a straight answer with a flurry of "uh, uh, uh,", halting phrases and contradictory assertions. The speech was characterized as "optimistically pessimistic."

Ach, so maybe there's more to this than meets the eye and the wallet. In Europe the press is already blaming the banks for their role in the continuing economic collapse. On May 13th, the President of Germany, Horst Kohler, a former head of the International Monetary Fund lashed out at bankers, calling them, get this, MONSTERS.

It takes one to know one.

In a page one story in the Financial Times, Kohler said global financial markets have become a "monster" that must be "put back in place" for their "massive destruction of assets." He called for tougher and more efficient regulation.

This is the strongest criticism of bankers by a European leader since 2005 when German Vice-Chancellor Franz Muntefering attacked hedge funds as "swarms of locusts" whose profit maximization strategies "posed a danger to democracy."

No one was listening then. Is anyone listening now?

Crises just don't happen out of the blue unless there is a natural disaster, and even those are made worse by a deranged military junta like the one in Burma, inadequate preparations, and flawed building standards thanks to corruption.

When I was in China visiting the Three Gorges Dam, for example, I was told about a major revolt in the National People's Assembly against the dam because it was in a known earthquake zone. The leadership rejected the concerns and imposed its will. So far, the big Dam is safe, but 400 others aren't. 32,000 people are not alive either.

There is a financial quake still underway today with its own shocks and aftershocks. Will anyone in our media look at the precipitating role played by the bankers and the Bolsheviks including our old friend/fiend Jim Wilkinson?

You can almost predict that wherever he shows up, there's gonna be a disaster.

And you can also predict that the mainstream press will be looking the other way, more than happy to attack any critics suspected of telling the truth or living in what the all knowing New York Times columnist David Brooks so cleverly sneers at as "Noam Chomskyland."

Ha! Ha!

Tell that to the cashier the next time you pay too much for a loaf of bread.

~ From : Smirking Chimp ~

'The Grail is like Everest: you climb it because it's there.'

Like Jones, Rahn was an archaeologist, like him he fell foul of the Nazis and like him he was obsessed with finding the Holy Grail - the cup reputedly used to catch Christ's blood when he was crucified. But whereas Jones rode the Grail-train to box-office glory, Rahn's obsession ended up costing him his life.

However, Rahn is such a strange figure, and his story so bizarre, that simply seeing him as the unlikely progenitor of Indiana Jones is to do him a disservice. Here was a man who entered into a terrible Faustian pact: he was given every resource imaginable to realise his dream. There was just one catch: in return, he had to find something that - if it ever existed - had not been seen for almost 2,000 years.

[ ... ]

Rahn decided that he was going to go one better: he would use the 13th-century epic Parsifal as his guide to finding the Holy Grail. Why did he think Parsifal would lead him to his goal? This is a tricky one - and, as with anything to do with the Holy Grail, one should never underestimate the power of wishful thinking.

But Rahn was also a serious scholar and the more he pored over Parsifal, the more he became convinced that the Cathars, the medieval Christian sect, held the secret to the Grail's whereabouts. In 1244, shortly before the Cathars were massacred by a Catholic crusade, three Cathar knights had apparently slipped over the wall of Montsegur Castle in the Languedoc area of France. With them, hidden in a hessian bag, was a cup reputed to be the Holy Grail.

Rahn arrived at Montsegur in the summer of 1931. He didn't find the Grail, but he did find a complex of caves nearby that the Cathars had used as a kind of subterranean cathedral. If he'd been of a less optimistic bent, he might have shrugged his narrow shoulders and gone home. Rahn, however, wasn't the going-home type. Certain he was on the right track, he wrote a book called Crusade Against the Grail in which he described his quest.

It was at this point that Rahn met his Mephistopheles. One day in 1933 he received a mysterious telegram offering him 1,000 reichsmarks a month to write the sequel to Crusade Against the Grail. The telegram was unsigned, but he was instructed to go to an address in Berlin - 7 Prinz Albrechtstrasse.

When he arrived, he was understandably surprised to be greeted by the grinning figure of Heinrich Himmler, the head of Hitler's SS. Not only had Himmler read Crusade Against the Grail; he'd virtually committed the thing to memory. For the first time in his life Rahn met someone even more obsessed with finding the Grail than he was. Indeed, so confident was Himmler of finding the Grail that he'd already prepared a castle - Wewelsburg in Westphalia - for its arrival. In the basement, surrounded by busts of prominent Nazis, was an empty plinth where the Grail would go.

 

~ From: The original Indiana Jones: Otto Rahn and the temple of doom ~

 

Olmert: 'Greater Israel' a delusion

Only fantasists can believe that in this day and age, and in the current situation, it is still possible to cling to the vision of 'Greater Israel,' Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday.
 
Olmert participated in the committee's session to brief them on the resumption of negotiations with Syria and to address criticism of his apparent willingness to cede the Golan Heights as part of a final peace agreement. "Today we face the choice between Greater Israel and a Jewish nation – the two are mutually exclusive. They only exist together in the minds of deluded fantasists who misconstrue reality," he said.
 
The Israeli prime minister explained the decision to keep the talks under wraps despite the fact that the matter had been hotly debated by the committee on past occasions was the sensitive nature of the negotiations.
 
"Anyone in my chair understands that these moves need to be made with the utmost caution, and secrecy is a necessary part of that. Not even the entire cabinet could be privy to the information. I initiated this move in February 2007, with a record of four predecessors who went to Damascus and committed to painful concessions, and let no one put me to the test on proving those commitments – they are all accounted for."
 
As for international responses to the talks, particularly that of the United States, Olmert stressed that "there is not a single party in the world that told Israel not to negotiate for peace. Regardless of this, I certainly shared our thoughts and the developments with our closest friends – as is natural.
 
"What tipped the scales what the burning question of what might happen if, heaven forbid, we would be drawn, due to a miscalculation, into a violent confrontation with Syria. Then I would be asked - how can it be that they were seeking peace and you did not even examine the possibility?"
 
Greater Israel or Jewish state – not both Olmert also touched on the Palestinian issue, saying that negotiations with the Palestinian Authority were serious and going forward in good faith, but that time was a vital factor in the peace efforts.
 
"I was one of those who thought the two-state solution was wrong, but that was a mistake," he said. "Most today understand that the choice is between two states for two peoples or one state in which all have an equal right to vote," Olmert said.
 
Livnat: Olmert the delusional one
MK Limor Livnat (Likud) slammed Olmert's statements and called them "delusional for someone at the end of his political rope."

 

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Rep. Wexler calls for impeachments - by Kipper Mathews (Libertarian)

Below is a copy of a letter I received from Rep. Robert Wexler, explaining his drive to pursue impeachment hearings for George W. Bush and members of his administration after receiving disturbing news releases on Scott McClellan's new book.

He is determined to proceed regardless of the position held by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has said that impeachment hearings are "off-the-table."

Below is a copy of that letter.

Dear Kipper,

Last night, significant news broke that directly impacts our push for Impeachment Hearings and a possible Inherent Contempt charge for Bush Administration officials such as Karl Rove:

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has revealed in his upcoming book that:
• Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and Vice President Cheney lied about their role in revealing the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson – actions easily amounting to obstruction of Justice.

McClellan also admitted that:
• There was a coordinated effort within the Bush Administration to use propaganda to pump up the case for the Iraq war and hide the projected costs of the war from the public.

Scott McClellan must be called to testify under oath before the House Judiciary Committee to tell Congress and the American people everything he knows about this massive effort by the White House to deceive this nation into war.

Last week, a subpoena was issued for Karl Rove to testify before the Judiciary Committee. It appears he will take every legal action to block this subpoena. The truth is that Congress has the right – and obligation – to hold him accountable now - not months or years from now. It is long past time to pass Inherent Contempt and bring Rove, Libby and others before Congress.

We simply cannot ignore these recent developments, nor should we postpone serious inquiry until after the next election.

Your commitment to accountability for the Bush/Cheney Administration, and the support of 230,000 other Americans who signed up at wexlerwantshearings.com, has inspired and motivated me in my effort to hold impeachment hearings for Vice President Dick Cheney and Inherent Contempt for Rove and others. During the past months I have been a tireless and dogged advocate of this vitally important cause.

Many of you have written me, asking for an update on where we stand with regards to impeachment hearings. I know most of you believe - as I do - that impeachment hearings for Vice President Cheney – are not only justified, but that it is our constitutional obligation to look into the serious allegations of wrongdoing that have been raised. This is especially true based on the newest revelations from Scott McClellan.

I believe that it is the duty of Congress to pursue impeachment whenever there's significant evidence of wrongdoing, be it by Republicans or Democrats, regardless of the timing of elections or the current political environment.

Some of you have written me demanding that I deliver hearings or impeachment. As hard as I have been fighting for this cause, I cannot make impeachment happen by myself. What I can do, and what I have been doing at every turn, is trying to communicate two simple messages to my colleagues:
• the serious allegations of wrongdoing and the clear-cut rationale for impeachment hearings;and
• the fact that the public will support our efforts when Congress boldly acts on the side of justice and accountability.

Unfortunately, to date, these arguments have not been enough to convince even a majority of the liberal and progressive Members of Congress to support impeachment hearings. In addition, the leadership of the Democratic Party in Congress genuinely feels that pursuing impeachment will jeopardize our congressional agenda and threaten gains in the November elections. Although I genuinely disagree with this view, to date I have been unable to convince them to change this policy.

I understand the challenges that we are up against, and I recognize the odds that we face. Nevertheless, I remain unfazed and unyielding.

This new evidence from Scott McClellan could be the tipping point – but we must move quickly. I will use the McClellan admissions to help convince my colleagues that we must hold impeachment hearings.

Regardless, I will continue to fight for progressive values and our Constitution. I will do everything I can to pursue accountability for criminal actions taken by this Administration and this Vice President. I will be a furious opponent to any expansion of this misguided war, and I will fight against the use of torture by our government and to protect our civil liberties here at home.

Most of all, I will continue my efforts to convince my fellow members of Congress and voters, that we should not be a party of passivity - but that we succeed when we present the public with stark choices that are based on the guarantees in our Constitution, and not on the politics of the moment.

I will continue - at every pass - to call for impeachment and accountability. While I wish more of my colleagues supported our movement, we must not let our discouragement lead to apathy and distraction in this important election year when we must break free from eight long years of illegalities, corporate handouts, and a tragic and devastating war.
We should not end the calls for impeachment. I will push against the crimes of the Bush Administration whenever I am provided the opportunity. I will use my role on the Judiciary Committee to take on Administration officials – like I have done with Condoleezza Rice, Attorney Generals Gonzalez and Mukasey, and FBI Director Mueller.
I have not given up our fight to hold this Administration accountable and neither can you. I am grateful for your patriotism and your support. I'll continue to keep you informed and part of the conversation.

Sincerely,

Congressman Robert Wexler

VIEW POINT:

George should have listened to his Daddy....

"All people should practice the Rule-Of-Law or be held accountable."

The Constitution "Demands" Congress to proceed, it is not a choice as knowledge of a crime and not doing anything about it is a crime in itself.

~ source link ~

USA military officers challenge official account of September 11

Twenty-five former U.S. military officers have severely criticized the official account of 9/11 and called for a new investigation. They include former commander of U.S. Army Intelligence, Major General Albert Stubblebine, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Col. Ronald D. Ray, two former staff members of the Director of the National Security Agency; Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, PhD, and Major John M. Newman, PhD, and many others. They are among the rapidly growing number of military and intelligence service veterans, scientists, engineers, and architects challenging the government's story. The officers' statements appear below, listed alphabetically.

Lt. Col. Robert Bowman, PhD

"A lot of these pieces of information, taken together, prove that the official story, the official conspiracy theory of 9/11 is a bunch of hogwash. It's impossible," said Lt. Col. Robert Bowman, PhD, U.S. Air Force (ret). With doctoral degrees in Aeronautics and Nuclear Engineering, Col. Bowman served as Director of Advanced Space Programs Development under Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

"There's a second group of facts having to do with the cover up," continued Col. Bowman.

"Taken together these things prove that high levels of our government don't want us to know what happened and who's responsible. Who gained from 9/11? Who covered up crucial information about 9/11? And who put out the patently false stories about 9/11 in the first place? When you take those three things together, I think the case is pretty clear that it's highly placed individuals in the administration with all roads passing through Dick Cheney."

Regarding the failure of NORAD to intercept the four hijacked planes on 9/11, Col. Bowman said, "I'm an old interceptor pilot. I know the drill. I've done it. I know how long it takes. I know the rules. … Critics of the government story on 9/11 have said: 'Well, they knew about this, and they did nothing'. That's not true. If our government had done nothing that day and let normal procedure be followed, those planes, wherever they were, would have been intercepted, the Twin Towers would still be standing and thousands of dead Americans would still be alive."

During his 22-year Air Force career, Col. Bowman also served as the Head of the Department of Aeronautical Engineering and Assistant Dean at the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology. He also flew over 100 combat missions in Viet Nam as a fighter pilot.

Lt. Jeff Dahlstrom

Former U.S. Air Force pilot Lt. Jeff Dahlstrom wrote in a 2007 statement to this author, "When 9/11 occurred I bought the entire government and mainstream media story line. I was a lifelong conservative Republican that voted for Bush/Cheney, twice. Curiosity about JFK's death, after a late night TV re-run of Oliver Stone's movie, got me started researching and digging for the truth about his assassins.

"My research led me to a much more important and timely question: the mystery of what really did happen on 9/11. Everything that seemed real, turned out to be false. The US government and the news media, once again, were lying to the world about the real terrorists and the public murder of 2,972 innocents on 9/11.

"The 'Patriot Act' was actually written prior to 9/11 with the intention of destroying the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. It was passed by Congress, based upon the government's myth of 9/11, which was in reality a staged hoax. 9/11 was scripted and executed by rogue elements of the military, FAA, intelligence, and private contractors working for the US government.

"In addition to severely curtailing fundamental rights of Americans, the 9/11 crime was then used by this administration, the one I originally voted for and supported, to justify waging two preemptive wars (and most likely a third war), killing over 4,500 American soldiers, and killing over one million innocent Afghan and Iraqi people.

"It was all premeditated. Treason, a false flag military operation, and betrayal of the trust of the American people were committed on 9/11 by the highest levels of the US government and not one person responsible for the crimes, or the cover-up, has been held accountable for the last six years.

"After reading fifteen well-researched books, studying eight or nine DVD documentaries, and devoting months of personal research and investigation, I have arrived at one ultimate conclusion: The American government and the US Constitution have been hijacked and subverted by a group of criminals that today are the real terrorists. They are in control of the US government and they have all violated their oaths of office and committed treason against their own citizens."

Capt. Daniel Davis

Capt. Daniel Davis is a former U.S. Army Air Defense Officer and NORAD Tac Director. After his military service, Capt. Davis served for 15 years as a Senior Manager at General Electric Turbine (jet) Engine Division and then devoted an additional 15 years as founder and CEO of Turbine Technology Services Corp., a turbine (jet engine) services and maintenance company.

In a statement to this author, Capt. Davis wrote, "As a former General Electric Turbine engineering specialist and manager and then CEO of a turbine engineering company, I can guarantee that none of the high tech, high temperature alloy engines on any of the four planes that crashed on 9/11 would be completely destroyed, burned, shattered or melted in any crash or fire. Wrecked, yes, but not destroyed. Where are all of those engines, particularly at the Pentagon? If jet powered aircraft crashed on 9/11, those engines, plus wings and tail assembly, would be there."

Decorated with the Bronze Star and the Soldiers Medal for bravery under fire and the Purple Heart for injuries sustained in Viet Nam, Capt. Davis also served in the Army Air Defense Command as Nike Missile Battery Control Officer for the Chicago-Milwaukee Defense Area.

Capt. Davis continued, "Additionally, in my experience as an officer in NORAD as a Tactical Director for the Chicago-Milwaukee Air Defense and as a current private pilot, there is no way that an aircraft on instrument flight plans (all commercial flights are IFR) would not be intercepted when they deviate from their flight plan, turn off their transponders, or stop communication with Air Traffic Control. No way! With very bad luck, perhaps one could slip by, but no there's no way all four of them could!

"Finally, going over the hill and highway and crashing into the Pentagon right at the wall/ground interface is difficult for even a small slow single engine airplane and no way for a 757. Maybe the best pilot in the world could accomplish that but not these unskilled 'terrorists'. Attempts to obscure facts by calling them a 'Conspiracy Theory' does not change the truth. It seems, 'Something is rotten in the State'."

Major Jon I. Fox is a former U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot and a retired commercial airline pilot for Continental Airlines with a 35-year commercial aviation career. In 2007, in support of the Architects and Engineers[3] petition to reinvestigate 9/11, he wrote, "On hearing the military (NORAD/NEAD) excuses for no intercepts on 9/11/2001, I knew from personal experience that they were lying. I then began re-checking other evidence and found mostly more lies from the 'official spokesmen'. Jet fuel fires at atmospheric pressure do not get hot enough to weaken steel. Structures do not collapse through themselves in free fall time with only gravity as the powering force."

Commander Ralph Kolstad

Retired U.S. Navy 'Top Gun' pilot Commander Ralph Kolstad started questioning the official account of 9/11 within days of the event. In a statement to this author, he wrote, "It just didn't make any sense to me," he said. And now six years after 9/11 he says, "When one starts using his own mind, and not what one was told, there is very little to believe in the official story."

Commander Kolstad was a top-rated fighter pilot during his 20-year Navy career. Early in his career, he was accorded the honor of being selected to participate in the Navy's 'Top Gun' air combat school, officially known as the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School. The Tom Cruise movie "Top Gun" reflects the experience of the young Navy pilots at the school. Eleven years later, Commander Kolstad was further honored by being selected to become a 'Top Gun' adversary instructor.

Commander Kolstad had a second career after his 20 years of Navy active and reserve service and served as a commercial airline pilot for 27 years, flying for American Airlines and other domestic and international careers. He flew Boeing 727, 757 and 767, McDonnell Douglas MD-80, and Fokker F-100 airliners. He has flown a total of over 23,000 hours in his career.

Commander Kolstad is especially critical of the account of American Airlines Flight 77 that allegedly crashed into the Pentagon. He says, "At the Pentagon, the pilot of the Boeing 757 did quite a feat of flying. I have 6,000 hours of flight time in Boeing 757's and 767's and I could not have flown it the way the flight path was described."

Commander Kolstad adds, "I was also a Navy fighter pilot and Air Combat Instructor and have experience flying low altitude, high speed aircraft. I could not have done what these beginners did. Something stinks to high heaven!"

He points to the physical evidence at the Pentagon impact site and asks in exasperation,

"Where is the damage to the wall of the Pentagon from the wings? Where are the big pieces that always break away in an accident? Where is all the luggage? Where are the miles and miles of wire, cable, and lines that are part and parcel of any large aircraft? Where are the steel engine parts? Where is the steel landing gear? Where is the tail section that would have broken into large pieces?"

But no major element of the official account of 9/11 is spared from Commander Kolstad's criticism. Regarding the alleged impact site of United Airlines Flight 93 near Shanksville, PA, he asks, "Where is any of the wreckage? Of all the pictures I have seen, there is only a hole! Where is any piece of a crashed airplane? Why was the area cordoned off, and no inspection allowed by the normal accident personnel? Where is any evidence at all?"

Commander Kolstad also questions many aspects of the attack on the World Trade Center. "How could a steel and concrete building collapse after being hit by a Boeing 767? Didn't the engineers design it to withstand a direct hit from a Boeing 707, approximately the same size and weight of the 767? The evidence just doesn't add up."

"Why did the second building collapse before the first one, which had been burning for 20 minutes longer after a direct hit, especially when the second one hit was just a glancing blow? If the fire was so hot, then why were people looking out the windows and in the destroyed areas? Why have so many members of the New York Fire Department reported seeing or hearing many 'explosions' before the buildings collapsed?"

Commander Kolstad summarized his frustration with the investigation and disbelief of the official account of 9/11, "If one were to act as an accident investigator, one would look at the evidence, and then construct a plausible scenario as to what led to the accident. In this case, we were told the story and then the evidence was built to support the story. What happened to any intelligent investigation? Every question leads to another question that has not been answered by anyone in authority. This is just the beginning as to why I don't believe the official 'story' and why I want the truth to be told."

Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski

A Pentagon eye-witness and a former member of the staff of the Director of the National Security Agency, Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, PhD, U.S. Air Force (ret), is a severe critic of the official account of 9/11. A contributing author to the 2006 book 9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out, she wrote, "I believe the [9/11] Commission failed to deeply examine the topic at hand, failed to apply scientific rigor to its assessment of events leading up to and including 9/11, failed to produce a believable and unbiased summary of what happened, failed to fully examine why it happened, and even failed to include a set of unanswered questions for future research."

She continued, "It is as a scientist that I have the most trouble with the official government conspiracy theory, mainly because it does not satisfy the rules of probability or physics. The collapses of the World Trade Center buildings clearly violate the laws of probability and physics."

Col. Kwiatkowski was working in the Pentagon on 9/11 in her capacity as Political-Military Affairs Officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense when Flight 77 allegedly hit the Pentagon. She wrote, "There was a dearth of visible debris on the relatively unmarked lawn, where I stood only minutes after the impact. Beyond this strange absence of airliner debris, there was no sign of the kind of damage to the Pentagon structure one would expect from the impact of a large airliner. This visible evidence or lack thereof may also have been apparent to the Secretary of Defense [Donald Rumsfeld], who in an unfortunate slip of the tongue referred to the aircraft that slammed into the Pentagon as a 'missile.' [Secretary Rumsfeld also publicly referred to Flight 93 as the plane that was "shot down" over Pennsylvania.]

"I saw nothing of significance at the point of impact - no airplane metal or cargo debris was blowing on the lawn in front of the damaged building as smoke billowed from within the Pentagon. ... [A]ll of us staring at the Pentagon that morning were indeed looking for such debris, but what we expected to see was not evident.

"The same is true with regard to the kind of damage we expected. ... But I did not see this kind of damage. Rather, the facade had a rather small hole, no larger than 20 feet in diameter. Although this facade later collapsed, it remained standing for 30 or 40 minutes, with the roof line remaining relatively straight.

"The scene, in short, was not what I would have expected from a strike by a large jetliner. It was, however, exactly what one would expect if a missile had struck the Pentagon. ... More information is certainly needed regarding the events of 9/11 and the events leading up to that terrible day."

The improbability of the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 is a major concern of these officers and a growing number of scientists, engineers and architects. The building was 610 feet tall, 47 stories, and would have been the tallest building in 33 states. Although it was not hit by an airplane, it completely collapsed into a pile of rubble in less than 7 seconds at 5:20 p.m. on 9/11. In the 6 years since 9/11, the Federal government has failed to provide any explanation for the collapse. In addition to the failure to provide an explanation, absolutely no mention of Building 7's collapse appears in the 9/11 Commission's "full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks."

Lt. Col. Shelton Lankford

Lt. Col. Shelton Lankford, U.S. Marine Corps (ret), an attack pilot with over 300 combat missions, wrote in 2007 to the Michigan Daily, "Our government has been hijacked by means of a 'new Pearl Harbor' and a lot of otherwise good and decent people who are gullible enough to think that the first three steel-framed buildings in history fall down because they have some fires that the fire fighter on the scene said could be knocked down with a couple of hoses and through which people walked before they were photographed looking out the holes where the plane hit. One of these, Building 7, was never hit by a plane and even NIST is ashamed to advance a reason for its collapse. And, miracle of miracles, these three buildings just happened to be leased and insured by the same guy who is on tape saying they decided to 'PULL' the last one to fall."
During his 20 year military career, Col. Lankford's decorations include the Distinguished Flying Cross, and 32 awards of the Air Medal.

In a statement to this author, Col. Lankford wrote,

"September 11, 2001 seems destined to be the watershed event of our lives and the greatest test for our democracy in our lifetimes. The evidence of government complicity in the lead-up to the events, the failure to respond during the event, and the astounding lack of any meaningful investigation afterwards, as well as the ignoring of evidence turned up by others that renders the official explanation impossible, may signal the end of the American experiment. It has been used to justify all manners of measures to legalize repression at home and as a pretext for behaving as an aggressive empire abroad. Until we demand an independent, honest, and thorough investigation and accountability for those whose action and inaction led to those events and the cover-up, our republic and our Constitution remain in the gravest danger."

Lt. Col. Jeff Latas

Another harsh critic of the official account of 9/11 is Lt. Col. Jeff Latas, U.S. Air Force (ret). A former combat fighter pilot, Col. Latas is currently a commercial airline pilot.

Col. Latas is a member of Pilots for 9/11 Truth. In 2007 he was interviewed by the group's founder, commercial airline pilot, Rob Balsamo, regarding the group's documentary video, Pandora's Black Box, Chapter 2, Flight of American 77, which focuses on the 9/11 Commission's account of the impact of Flight 77 at the Pentagon and discrepancies with the data from the Flight Data Recorder alleged by the NTSB to be from Flight 77.

In the interview, Col. Latas said, "After I did my own analysis of it, it's obvious that there's discrepancies between the two stories; between the 9/11 Commission and the flight data recorder information. And I think that's where we really need to focus a lot of our attention to get the help that we need in order to put pressure on government agencies to actually do a real investigation of 9/11. And not just from a security standpoint, but from even an aviation standpoint, like any accident investigation would actually help the aviators out by finding reasons for things happening."

A highly decorated fighter pilot, Col. Latas was awarded the Distinguish Flying Cross for Heroism, four Air Medals, four Meritorious Service Medals, and nine Aerial Achievement Medals. His combat experience includes Desert Storm and four tours of duty in Northern and Southern Watch. During his 20-year Air Force career, he also served as Pentagon Weapons Requirement Officer, as a member of the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review, and as President, U.S. Air Force Accident Investigation Board.

Col. Latas concluded, "And I think that we Americans need to demand further investigation just to clarify the discrepancies that you've [Pilots for 9/11 Truth] found. And I think that we need to be getting on the phone with our Congressmen and women and letting them know that we don't accept the excuses that we're hearing now, that we want true investigators to do a true investigation."

Commander Ted Muga and Capt. Eric H. May

Capt. Eric H. May, U.S. Army (ret), is a former Army Intelligence Officer who also served as an inspector and interpreter for the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty team. He is one of many signers of a petition requesting a reinvestigation of 9/11. In 2005, he wrote: "As a former Army officer, my tendency immediately after 911 was to rally 'round the colors and defend the country against what I then thought was an insidious, malicious all-Arab entity called Al-Qaida. In fact, in April of 2002, I attempted to reactivate my then-retired commission to return to serve my country in its time of peril. ...

Now I view the 911 event as Professor David Griffin, author of The New Pearl Harbor, views it: as a matter that implies either

A) passive participation by the Bush White House through a deliberate stand-down of proper defense procedures that (if followed) would have led US air assets to a quick identification and confrontation of the passenger aircraft that impacted WTC 1 and WTC 2, or worse ...

B) active execution of a plot by rogue elements of government, starting with the White House itself, in creating a spectacle of destruction that would lead the United States into an invasion of the Middle East ..."

Commander Ted Muga, U.S. Navy (ret), is a Navy aviator, who, after retirement, had a second career as a commercial airline pilot for Pan-Am.

In a 2007 interview on the Alex Jones Show, Commander Muga stated,

"The maneuver at the Pentagon was just a tight spiral coming down out of 7,000 feet. And a commercial aircraft, while they can in fact structurally somewhat handle that maneuver, they are very, very, very difficult. And it would take considerable training. In other words, commercial aircraft are designed for a particular purpose and that is for comfort and for passengers and it's not for military maneuvers. And while they are structurally capable of doing them, it takes some very, very talented pilots to do that. ... I just can't imagine an amateur even being able to come close to performing a maneuver of that nature.

"And as far as hijacking the airplanes, once again getting back to the nature of pilots and airplanes, there is no way that a pilot would give up an airplane to hijackers. ... I mean, hell, a guy doesn't give up a TV remote control much less a complicated 757. And so to think that pilots would allow a plane to be taken over by a couple of 5 foot 7, 150 pound guys with a one-inch blade boxcutter is ridiculous.

"And also in all four planes, if you remember, none of the planes ever switched on their transponder to the hijack code. There's a very, very simple code that you put in if you suspect that your plane is being hijacked. It takes literally just a split-second for you to put your hand down on the center console and flip it over. And not one of the four planes ever transponded a hijack code, which is most, most unusual.

"Commercial airplanes are very, very complex pieces of machines. And they're designed for two pilots up there, not just two amateur pilots, but two qualified commercial pilots up there. And to think that you're going to get an amateur up into the cockpit and fly, much less navigate, it to a designated target, the probability is so low, that it's bordering on impossible."

Col. George Nelson

"In all my years of direct and indirect participation, I never witnessed nor even heard of an aircraft loss, where the wreckage was accessible, that prevented investigators from finding enough hard evidence to positively identify the make, model, and specific registration number of the aircraft -- and in most cases the precise cause of the accident," wrote Col. George Nelson, MBA, U.S. Air Force (ret), a former U.S. Air Force aircraft accident investigator and airplane parts authority.

"The government alleges that four wide-body airliners crashed on the morning of September 11 2001, resulting in the deaths of more than 3,000 human beings, yet not one piece of hard aircraft evidence has been produced in an attempt to positively identify any of the four aircraft. On the contrary, it seems only that all potential evidence was deliberately kept hidden from public view," continued Col. Nelson, a graduate of the U.S. Air Force War College and a 34-year Air Force veteran.

"With all the evidence readily available at the Pentagon crash site, any unbiased rational investigator could only conclude that a Boeing 757 did not fly into the Pentagon as alleged. Similarly, with all the evidence available at the Pennsylvania crash site, it was most doubtful that a passenger airliner caused the obvious hole in the ground and certainly not the Boeing 757 as alleged. …

"As painful and heartbreaking as was the loss of innocent lives and the lingering health problems of thousands more, a most troublesome and nightmarish probability remains that so many Americans appear to be involved in the most heinous conspiracy in our country's history."

Maj. John M. Newman, PhD, Capt. Omar Pradhan and Col. Ronald D. Ray

Maj. John M. Newman, PhD, U.S. Army (ret), is the former Executive Assistant to the Director of the National Security Agency. In testimony before a 2005 Congressional briefing, he said,

"It falls to me this morning to bring to your attention the story of Saeed Sheikh, whose full name is Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and his astonishing rise to power in Al Qaeda, his crucial role in 9/11, which is completely, utterly, missing from the 9/11 Commission report…

"The 9/11 Commission which studied US intelligence and law enforcement community performance in great detail, (maybe not so much great detail, but they did), neglected to cover the community's performance during the weeks following the attacks to determine who was responsible for them, not a word about that in the Report.

"The Report does discuss the immediate US responses but the immediate investigation is never addressed, and anyone who has closely studied the post-9/11 investigation knows that the first breakthrough came two weeks into the investigation when the money transfers from the United Arab Emirates to the hijackers were uncovered.

"Furthermore, if you have studied that investigation, you know there is no disputing that while investigators may have struggled with the identity of the paymaster, they were clear about one thing, he was Al Qaeda's finance chief. For this reason alone you have to ask why the 9/11 Commission Report never mentions the finance chief's role as the 9/11 paymaster."

Capt. Omar Pradhan, U.S. Air Force, is a former AWACS command pilot and Flight Instructor at the U.S. Air Force Academy. In a 2007 statement to this author, Capt. Pradhan wrote, "As a proud American, as a distinguished USAF E-3 AWACS Aircraft Commander (with 350+ hours of combat time logged over Afghanistan and Iraq), and as a former U.S. Air Force Academy Flight Instructor, I warmly endorse the professional inquiry and pursuit of comprehensive truth sought by the Pilots for 911 Truth organization and the PatriotsQuestion911 website."

Another senior officer questioning the official account of 9/11 is Col. Ronald D. Ray, U.S. Marine Corps (ret), Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan. A highly decorated Vietnam veteran (two Silver Stars, a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart), he was appointed by President George H. W. Bush to serve on the American Battle Monuments Commission (1990 – 1994), and the 1992 Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces. He was Military Historian and Deputy Director of Field Operations for the U.S. Marine Corps Historical Center, Washington, D.C. (1990 – 1994).

In an interview on Alex Jones' radio show on June 30, 2006, Col. Ray described the official account of 9/11 as "the dog that doesn't hunt", meaning it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. In response to Alex Jones' question, "Is it safe to say or is the statement accurate that you smell something rotten in the state of Denmark when it comes to 9/11?" Col. Ray replied,"I'm astounded that the conspiracy theory advanced by the administration could in fact be true and the evidence does not seem to suggest that that's accurate. That's true."

"After 4+ years of research since retirement in 2002, I am 100% convinced that the attacks of September 11, 2001 were planned, organized, and committed by treasonous perpetrators that have infiltrated the highest levels of our government. It is now time to take our country back," wrote Lt. Col. Guy S. Razer, MS, U.S. Air Force (ret), in a statement to this author.

A retired fighter pilot, Col. Razer served as an instructor at the U.S. Air Force Fighter Weapons School and NATO's Tactical Leadership Program and flew combat missions over Iraq. He continued, "The 'collapse' of WTC Building 7 shows beyond any doubt that the demolitions were pre-planned. There is simply no way to demolish a 47-story building (on fire) over a coffee break. It is also impossible to report the building's collapse before it happened, as BBC News did, unless it was pre-planned. Further damning evidence is Larry Silverstein's video taped confession in which he states 'they made that decision to pull [WTC 7] and we watched the building collapse.'

"We cannot let the pursuit of justice fail. Those of us in the military took an oath to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic'. Just because we have retired does not make that oath invalid, so it is not just our responsibility, it is our duty to expose the real perpetrators of 9/11 and bring them to justice, no matter how hard it is, how long it takes, or how much we have to suffer to do it," he concluded.

Maj. Scott Ritter, Maj. Douglas Rokke, PhD, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer

Maj. Scott Ritter, U.S. Marine Corps, is a former Marine Corps Intelligence Officer who also served as Chief Weapons Inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq 1991 - 1998. In 2005, he said: "I, like the others, are frustrated by the 9/11 Commission Report, by the lack of transparency on the part of the United States government, both in terms of the executive branch and the legislative branch when it comes to putting out on the table all facts known to the 9/11 case."

Maj. Douglas Rokke, PhD, U.S. Army (ret), former Director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project and 30-year veteran, had this to say about the explosion at the Pentagon on 9/11, "When you look at the whole thing, especially the crash site void of airplane parts, the size of the hole left in the building and the fact the projectile's impact penetrated numerous concrete walls, it looks like the work of a missile. And when you look at the damage, it was obviously a missile."

The 9/11 Commission Report asserts that only three of the alleged hijackers were known to U.S. intelligence agencies prior to 9/11: Nawaf al-Hazmi, Salem al-Hazmi, and Khalid al-Mihdar. There is no mention in the Report that the names and photographs of alleged hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi and alleged ring-leader Mohamed Atta had been identified by the Department of Defense anti-terrorist program known as Able Danger more than a year prior to 9/11 and that they were known to be affiliates of al-Qaida. Able Danger also identified Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdar.

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee in 2006, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, U.S. Army Reserve, former Chief of the Army's Controlled HUMINT (Human Intelligence) Program, overseeing Army Intelligence and Security Command's global controlled HUMINT efforts, stated:

"[B]asic law enforcement investigative techniques, with 21st Century data mining and analytical tools ... resulted in the establishment of a new form of intelligence collection – and the identification of Mohammed Atta and several other of the 9-11 terrorists as having links to Al Qaeda leadership a full year in advance of the attacks. ...

"After contact by two separate members of the ABLE DANGER team, … the 9-11 [Commission] staff refused to perform any in-depth review or investigation of the issues that were identified to them. … It was their job to do a thorough investigation of these claims – to not simply dismiss them based on what many now believe was a 'preconceived' conclusion to the 9-11 story they wished to tell. … I consider this a failure of the 9-11 staff – a failure that the 9-11 Commissioners themselves were victimized by – and continue to have perpetrated on them by the staff as is evidenced by their recent, groundless conclusion that ABLE DANGER's findings were 'urban legend'."

A 23-year military intelligence veteran, Col. Shaffer was recently awarded the Bronze Star for bravery in Afghanistan. In a 2005 interview on Fox News, Col Shaffer asked, "Why did this operation, which was created in '99 to target Al Qaeda globally, offensively, why was that turned off in the Spring of 2001, four months before we were attacked? I can't answer that, either. I can tell you I was ordered out of the operation directly by a two-star general."

Supporting Col. Shaffer's statement, Capt. Scott J. Phillpott, U.S. Navy, currently Commanding Officer of the guided-missile cruiser USS Leyte Gulf and former head of the Able Danger data mining program, stated in 2005: "I will not discuss this outside of my chain of command. I have briefed the Department of the Army, the Special Operations Command and the office of (Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence) Dr. Cambone as well as the 9/11 Commission. My story has remained consistent. Atta was identified by Able Danger in January/February 2000." Capt. Phillpott is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, who during his 23 years of Navy service has been awarded the Legion of Merit, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, three Meritorious Service Medals, the Joint Service Commendation Medal, two Navy Commendation Medals, and the Navy Achievement Medal.

Joel Skousen and Gen. Albert Stubblebine

Former U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot Joel M. Skousen also questions the official account of 9/11. After his military service, Mr. Skousen served as Chairman of the Conservative National Committee in Washington DC and Executive Editor of Conservative Digest.

"In the March 2005 issue, PM [Popular Mechanics] magazine singled out 16 issues or claims of the 9/11 skeptics that point to government collusion and systematically attempted to debunk each one. Of the 16, most missed the mark and almost half were straw men arguments - either ridiculous arguments that few conspiracists believed or restatements of the arguments that were highly distorted so as to make them look weaker than they really were. ...

"I am one of those who claim there are factual arguments pointing to conspiracy, and that truth is not served by taking cheap shots at those who see gaping flaws in the government story ... There is significant evidence that the aircraft impacts did not cause the collapse [of the Twin Towers] ...

The issues of the penetration hole [at the Pentagon] and the lack of large pieces of debris simply do not jive with the official story, but they are explainable if you include the parking lot video evidence that shows a huge white explosion at impact. This cannot happen with an aircraft laden only with fuel. It can only happen in the presence of high explosives."

Major General Albert Stubblebine, U.S. Army (ret), former Commanding General of U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), is a strong critic of the official account of 9/11

In a 2006 video documentary he said,

"One of my experiences in the Army was being in charge of the Army's Imagery Interpretation for Scientific and Technical Intelligence during the Cold War. I measured pieces of Soviet equipment from photographs. It was my job. I look at the hole in the Pentagon and I look at the size of an airplane that was supposed to have hit the Pentagon. And I said, 'The plane does not fit in that hole'. So what did hit the Pentagon? What hit it? Where is it? What's going on?"

During his 32-year Army career, Gen. Stubblebine also commanded the U.S. Army's Electronic Research and Development Command and the U.S. Army's Intelligence School and Center. Gen. Stubblebine is one of the inductees into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.
"There is a well-organized cover-up of the events of 11 Sep 2001. The 9/11 Commission was a white-washed farce. There is evidence that US Government officials had advance knowledge of and are probably implicated in the events of 9/11," wrote retired military physician, Col. James R. Uhl, MD, U.S. Army (ret), in a statement to this author.

"A huge body of physical evidence has been ignored, suppressed, and ridiculed by the media and by our Government. Why did WTC 7 collapse? It was never hit by an airplane and was apparently brought down by explosives. How could Al-Qaida terrorists have had access and time to plant bombs in a top secret installation? Why did the 9/11 Commission fail to seek the reason for the WTC 7 collapse?" continued Col. Uhl, a 38-year Army veteran, who served in several theaters of operations, from Viet Nam through Iraq.

Capt. Russ Wittenberg

Capt. Russ Wittenberg, U.S. Air Force, is a former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot with over 100 combat missions and a retired commercial pilot, who flew for Pan Am and United Airlines for 35 years.

According to Capt. Wittenberg, "The government story they handed us about 9/11 is total B.S., plain and simple.

In the 2007 documentary video, 9/11 Ripple Effect, he said

"I flew the two actual aircraft which were involved in 9/11; the Fight number 175 and Flight 93, the 757 that allegedly went down in Shanksville and Flight 175 is the aircraft that's alleged to have hit the South Tower.

"I don't believe it's possible for, like I said, for a terrorist, a so-called terrorist, to train on a [Cessna] 172, then jump in a cockpit of a 757-767 class cockpit, and vertical navigate the aircraft, lateral navigate the aircraft, and fly the airplane at speeds exceeding its design limit speed by well over 100 knots, make high-speed high-banked turns, exceeding -- pulling probably 5, 6, 7 G's. And the aircraft would literally fall out of the sky. I couldn't do it and I'm absolutely positive they couldn't do it."

Regarding Flight 77, which allegedly hit the Pentagon, Capt. Wittenberg said,

"The airplane could not have flown at those speeds which they said it did without going into what they call a high speed stall. The airplane won't go that fast if you start pulling those high G maneuvers at those bank angles. … To expect this alleged airplane to run these maneuvers with a total amateur at the controls is simply ludicrous ... It's roughly a 100 ton airplane. And an airplane that weighs 100 tons all assembled is still going to have 100 tons of disassembled trash and parts after it hits a building. There was no wreckage from a 757 at the Pentagon. … The vehicle that hit the Pentagon was not Flight 77. We think, as you may have heard before, it was a cruise missile."

Col. Ann Wright and Capt. Gregory Zeigler

Another senior officer questioning the official account of 9/11 is Col. Ann Wright, U.S. Army (ret), who said in a 2007 interview with Richard Greene on the Air America Radio Network, "It's incredible some of these things that still are unanswered. The 9/11 Report -- that was totally inadequate. I mean the questions that anybody has after reading that."

Col. Wright is one of three U.S. State Department officials to publicly resign in direct protest of the invasion of Iraq in March, 2003. She served for 13 years on active duty and 16 additional years on reserve duty in the U.S. Army. She joined the Foreign Service in 1987 and served for 16 years as a U.S. Diplomat. She served as Deputy Chief of Mission of U.S. Embassies in Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Afghanistan and she helped reopen the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in December, 2001.

She continued in her interview:

"How could our national intelligence and defense operations be so inept that they could not communicate; that they could not scramble jets; that they could not take defensive action? And I totally agree. I always thought the Pentagon had all sorts of air defense sort of equipment around it; that they could take out anything that was coming at it. And for a plane to be able to just fly low right over Washington and slam into that thing is just -- I mean, you still just shake your head. How in the world could that happen?"

Capt. Gregory M. Zeigler, PhD, is a former U.S. Army Intelligence Officer. In a 2006 statement to this author, Capt. Zeigler wrote,

"I knew from September 18, 2001, that the official story about 9/11 was false. That was when I realized that the perpetrators had made a colossal blunder in collapsing the South Tower first, rather than the North Tower, which had been hit more directly and earlier.

"Other anomalies poured in rapidly: the hijackers' names appearing in none of the published flight passenger lists, BBC reports of stolen identities of the alleged hijackers or the alleged hijackers being found alive, the obvious demolitions of WTC 1 and 2 and WTC 7, the lack of identifiable Boeing 757 wreckage at the Pentagon, the impossibility of ordinary cell phone (as opposed to Airfone) calls being made consistently from passenger aircraft at cruising altitude, etc., etc., etc."

Shortly after the release of the 9/11 Commission Report, a group of over 100 prominent Americans signed a petition urging Congress to immediately reinvestigate 9/11. In addition to two former senior CIA officials and several U.S. State Department veterans, the signers included Lt. Col. Robert Bowman and Capt. Eric H. May, both mentioned above.

The petition stated, in part, "We want truthful answers to questions such as:

1. Why were standard operating procedures for dealing with hijacked airliners not followed that day?

2. Why were the extensive missile batteries and air defenses reportedly deployed around the Pentagon not activated during the attack?

3. Why did the Secret Service allow Bush to complete his elementary school visit, apparently unconcerned about his safety or that of the schoolchildren?

4. Why hasn't a single person been fired, penalized, or reprimanded for the gross incompetence we witnessed that day?

5. Why haven't authorities in the U.S. and abroad published the results of multiple investigations into trading that strongly suggested foreknowledge of specific details of the 9/11 attacks, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of traceable gains?"

These questions and many others still remain unanswered three years after the petition was submitted and six years after the terrible events of 9/11. As the statements of these twenty-five former U.S. military officers demonstrate, the need for a new thorough, and independent investigation of 9/11 is not a matter of partisan politics, nor the demand of irresponsible, deranged, or disloyal Americans. It is instead a matter of the utmost importance for America's security and the future of the entire world.

http://www.daily.pk/world/americas/99-americas/3865-usa-military-officers-challenge-official-account-of-september-11.html

~ From : Axis of Logic ~

The "Lost" Thirteenth Amendment - by Lisa Guliani

"…If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive, or retain any title of nobility or honor, or shall without the consent of Congress, accept and retain any present, pension, office, or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince, or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States, and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them."
~ The 13th Amendment to the Constitution ~

"…A country cannot be both ignorant and free."
~ Thomas Jefferson ~

"The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American People."
~ George Washington ~

Have you ever noticed how many lawyers there are in our government? We see them everywhere, in both high and low level positions. This is nothing new. Roughly half of our Founding Fathers were lawyers. As far as the top spot in government, 21 of our former Presidents were lawyers (or well-read in the law). The most recent former U.S. President just so happens to also be an attorney - Bill Clinton – who is, conveniently, married to another attorney, Hillary Rodham Clinton - Senator of New York. Of those former Presidents who were lawyers, one was called the "Dark Horse" President (James Polk), another was the only U.S. president to never marry (James Buchanon), and still another married the daughter of a banker (William McKinley). This last example will segue nicely into a discussion about lawyers and bankers and a little known amendment to the Constitution numbered 13.

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution? Not familiar with it? It's no wonder. No one ever discusses the 13th Amendment – in fact, our so-called government has been ignoring its existence since the 1800's. However, it has been the subject of some controversy in certain circles, and for good reason. You see, the 13th Amendment, also called the "Title of Nobility" Amendment, which prefaced this article – deals with prohibiting LAWYERS from holding positions of public office within the U.S. government.

But, wait a minute. Lawyers are EVERYWHERE in our government, aren't they? We see them scurrying around like little cockroaches all through the corridors of our federal buildings. Attorneys are constantly vying for public positions – in fact, it seems that the only way to even GET many of these governmental positions is to BE a lawyer. We have come to accept this as commonplace, standard practice – a requirement, even. We may not like or trust this practice, but it has always been the way things were done. Or is it? Why haven't we heard more about this 13th Amendment if such an important piece of legislation prohibits attorneys from holding these positions? Well, that is an interesting tale, but it may not surprise you very much. It is yet another example of the dog-and-pony show being performed before the American people, and is why we see the lawyers swarming all over government like germ-infested cockroaches spreading disease and polluting public policy. When this piece is finished, I am going to go wash my hands.

Let's go back to the time of the American Revolution now. America, in those days, reigned as a shining example of how a unified people could overthrow a tyrannical European monarchy and win a great struggle against oppression. The European monarchs at that time saw America as a huge threat to their very survival. They despised everything that America symbolized, and felt threatened enough to want to destroy us, so they plotted and connived and went to extraordinary means to justify a desired end.

In order to subvert our system of government, the monarchs decided to play dirty pool and exert some clever counter-revolutionary maneuvers utilizing the now-familiar English bankers. We've said their names a zillion times, so you know who they are by now. The monarchs, in collusion with the bankers, used money as a way to get people to commit treason. Yes, when they say money is the root of all evil, they're not kidding. The royal paranoids even sent spies to America to infiltrate our system of government.

In my research, I came across some interesting documents on the missing 13th Amendment. Of particular interest to me was one which refers to researcher David Dodge, who found a book in the Library of Congress Law Library which he discovered in the rare book section, titled "2 VA Law," which is un-catalogued. The volume "reveals a plan to overthrow the constitutional government by secret agreements engineered by lawyers." As Dodge puts it, "There is no public record that this book even exists." What?? Secret scheming by lawyers? Imagine that. Sound farfetched to you? It sounds right on the "money" to me. Throughout our history, bankers and lawyers have worked in conjunction to rule the world and destroy the United States. They almost succeeded a few times, and now look who's at it again… Take the Depression of the 1930's, for example, which was a classic case of illicit banking practices that impacted hard working members of society in extreme ways over an extended period of time. Ask any elderly person to tell you about the Great Depression. If they can recall the past, they will surely provide explicit information about the harrowing days of that period. In current times, politicians, lawyers, bankers, and governmental agencies work together like some malignant tumor raging through the nation - further contaminating an already infected system, spreading more political and economic disease throughout the Machine and the country. Who suffers? We all do – everybody that is, except for the bankers and the lawyers, who always seem to float to the top of the cesspool.

The 13th Amendment is also called the "Title of Nobility" Amendment because it refers to the word "Esquire," which was (and still is) used by attorneys behind their names. The word comes from the English. Back in the old days, the allegiance of "Esquire" lawyers was called into question by our forefathers. Why? Because they couldn't be trusted as far as you could throw them. An attorney with a title behind his name was deemed loyal to the monarchy in those days - therefore, our ancestors wanted to prohibit any person bearing such a title or those receiving "honors" (exemptions the rest of the citizenry are not privy to) from holding public office. I think it's safe to say that people in general regard lawyers warily to this very day, with good cause. Why? Because things haven't changed a whole helluva lot. They just leave a bad taste in your mouth…

The reasoning behind the proposal of the 13th Amendment was so that those persons (lawyers) in political power positions could not dictate or influence public policy by using their skills to destroy or subvert the government. In fact, the 13th Amendment makes it very clear that any person within the ranks of government holding public office, found to have a title of nobility or to be accepting "honors" must lose his position and FORFEIT HIS CITIZENSHIP to the United States. Wow!! This is a serious penalty! Our Founding Fathers considered "titles of nobility" a great threat to the continuity of the Republic, and so this penalty was added to the amendment to get the point across that such titles would not be tolerated in American government. The 13th Amendment was put into place to protect the People from corrupt, dishonest lawmakers. (What happened along the way?) At the time of its proposal in 1789, and thereafter, there were forces opposed to its ratification. Gee, does this come as any surprise? We know who they were – and are. THEY were and are the Controllers and their henchmen – and THEY will tell you that this amendment was never ratified. However, there is evidence to suggest that this is just another lie among a dung-heap of lies we have been fed. THEY blow a lot of smoke up the ole chimney, don't they?

Webster's dictionary defines the word "honor" this way: "Anyone obtaining or having a privilege over another."

Researcher Dodge uses a modern example of a judge as one who accepts "honors". Let's face it, judges are granted perks which we "common" citizens are not. I'm sure you and I can think of other governmental positions that afford "perks" or "honors". Incidentally, if you are not a lawyer, you will never be a judge in these modern times. Sorry, but it isn't like days of old when one didn't have to be a lawyer to counsel another in court, or to hold positions like attorney general. In the early times of our country, a citizen could obtain such an office without having to be an actual attorney. Try that now and see how far you get. Let's just say that the corporate UNITED STATES will not recognize the ordinary citizen in this manner.

The 13th Amendment sought to keep lawyers from gaining a political advantage over others, thereby restricting them from achieving power and control over the rest of us. And, despite the fact that many of the Founding Fathers were attorneys, they realized quite keenly how easily a person skilled in that profession could exploit the system and the citizenry by using legal prowess, political savvy and government/corporate connections to personal advantage. They wanted to ensure that each person had equality under the law. At least those great men had some scruples. It's a shame that legislation proposed by men of real honor and integrity was overridden by some corrupt, greedy power-mongers lacking any scruples, honor, or integrity of their own.

At the time of its initial proposal in 1789, and again in 1810, there were 17 states in the Union. To become part of the Constitution, the 13th Amendment had to be ratified by 13 of the 17 states. It is fully accepted that ratification was achieved in 12 states. They are, according to the National Archives:

Maryland –12- 25-1810
Ohio – 1-31-1811
Kentucky – 1-31-1811
Pennsylvania – 2-6-1811
Delaware – 2-2-1811
New Jersey – 2-13-1811
Vermont – 10-24-1811
Tennessee – 11-21-1811
Georgia – 12-13-1811
North Carolina – 12-23-1811
Massachusetts – 2-27-1812
New Hampshire – 12-10-1812

Virginia was the final state required to ratify the 13th Amendment and add it to the Constitution. However, conveniently enough, a little thing called the War of 1812 got in the way. It is interesting to note the timing of the War of 1812 coincided with the proposal of the 13th Amendment. Very interesting. Focus on Virginia's position on the ratification of this amendment waned due to the ensuing war and so, that state's decision was not made known until 1819.

The Virginians, it appears, RATIFIED the 13th Amendment by the method of publication and dissemination, which is allowed by the Constitution. This was perfectly well within their right. The state of Virginia published a special edition of the Constitution in a re-printing of the Virginia Civil Code on March 12, 1819. This special edition contained all Amendments, including the 13th. So, the 13th Amendment has an official date of ratification, as published in the special edition of the Constitution and Virginia Civil Code by the state of Virginia. The date is, as stated, March 12, 1819.

The Constitution accepts publication and dissemination of an Amendment as evidence of a legislatures' position in a ratification process. I wonder why the corporate UNITED STATES does not. According to Alfred Adask and David Dodge, who conducted extensive research on this subject, this publication/dissemination process is what is known as "prima facie" evidence and a fully acceptable way of conducting the business at hand. Virginia, therefore, counted as the required 13th state to make the 13th Amendment a LEGITIMATE addition to the Constitution. Since it has not been repealed, it is still the law today, unless you ask someone in the CORPORATE UNITED STATES PHONY BALONEY GOVERNMENT. (Pardon the cyber screaming, but the corporation likes the cap-lock key.) Nobody pays any attention to adhering to the 13th Amendment, of course, because it is somehow considered NOT RATIFIED, which is ludicrous. This is clearly evidenced by the scores of lawyers infesting Washington, resistant insects that crawl all over Congress, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. It's ironic, because the 14th Amendment is in full effect, and what proof do we have that THAT was ever ratified? You will even see the 14th referred to as "purportedly ratified". Yet, the difference is this: the 13th Amendment does NOT benefit the corporation known as the UNITED STATES, while the 14th Amendment DOES. Ahhh, there's the rub…

The corporate UNITED STATES continues to breed and disperse more lawyer cockroaches throughout the halls of injustice, where they continue to metastasize like an insidious cancer and pollute public policy with evil manipulations. What are ANY lawyers doing in public office? THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THERE AT ALL.

What do you have to say about this, Virginia? How does it feel to have your vote discounted and swept under the rug? What does the rest of America have to say about it? Shall we persist in allowing this BREACH of the Constitution to go on? Times are changing swiftly, my friends, and the waters are rising higher and higher. The political and economic coals are hotter than ever, and I wouldn't count on anything in this country "remaining the same" for much longer.

Are WE, Americans, so complacent and comfortable that we choose to ignore the LAW ourselves – even when we KNOW about it? Every single lawyer IN PUBLIC OFFICE today should be placed under the spotlight of the 13th Amendment. Period. Our Founding Fathers spelled it out quite clearly, yet nobody listened. Now we have an infestation, a massive swarm. Can you imagine how much we could clean up our alleged government if we got rid of the lawyers that aren't supposed to be there in the first place? Wow, what a concept. Wouldn't it be nice to say, Bye-Bye Hillary? You know it would. And that's just for starters. Just think about all we could accomplish if we set our minds to cleaning house for real. The implications are enormous!!

The Founding Fathers wanted this Republic to sustain. They handed us the tools with which to accomplish this objective. We did not use them well. Some have not been used at all. It is now time to learn how – and we'd best do it quick. We can no longer afford to be ignorant, complacent, silent, or lazy. We cannot afford to be too comfortable and consumed with our own personal situations. America needs our help if it is to survive. We have, in the past, forfeited OUR roles in the bigger picture, believing "government" would take care of us. "Government" has FAILED to do so. The corporate UNITED STATES takes care of its own. Not you and me. We have the RIGHT, RESPONSIBILITY, and the OBLIGATION to correct this situation. We need to INVOKE the 13th Amendment. We need to ASSERT ourselves as we have not done since the American Revolution. We need to take control of Information Dissemination and restore OUR POWER AS SOVEREIGNS over a corporation that has usurped both its power and its limitations. We MUST dissolve the monopolistic evil circle that controls what we see, read, and hear. We MUST free ourselves from the chains that bind us into slavery and begin immediately - because, I tell you, if we do not, the window of opportunity will slam down and be closed forever.

We CANNOT and MUST NOT allow the Controllers, with the help of their henchmen (lawyers and bankers) to succeed in destroying America. The very survival of our nation depends upon what we do today and tomorrow and all the tomorrows we have left.

I guess it comes down to whether or not WE, THE PEOPLE, have a backbone as our ancestors did. Whether or not WE believe strongly enough in those ideals we like to sing about. Are you a Patriot – or have comfort and complacency made you a coward? Think long and hard before you answer that one. If you wait too long, you can kiss your perceptions of "freedom" and "comfort" goodbye, because, like the 13th Amendment, which lies like a ghost in a forgotten grave, if good men continue to do nothing, they will see those "comforts" they now enjoy vanish before their eyes – and America, Land of Liberty, will be lost to us and our children.

Mark Twain says it best: "In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man and brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."

Where does your loyalty lie? With the corporation of the UNITED STATES OR with America? We don't need to "kill" all the lawyers, as the popular T-shirt says. We need to get them out of government.

Let's STOP the Machine.

 

~ source ~