There are many police and law enforcement officials who are concerned with the growing trend of using military-experienced mercenaries to train and work with local police officers in the United States, but there are many who believe the events of September 11, 2001 dictate the need for this new paradigm.
For example, Kentucky’s Lexington Police Department contracted Blackwater Security International to provide what’s described as homeland security training. Meanwhile that city’s Mayor Jim Newberry and its chief of police Anthony Beatty refused free training provided by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement federal program that prepares police officers to enforce immigration and border security as part of their duties.
Lexington is on the nation’s list of so-called Sanctuary Cities in which police officers are prohibited from working with ICE or Border Patrol agents in the United States. Critics are angry over the use of local tax dollars to hire Blackwater personnel to train the police.
But Lexington isn’t the only city using hired guns to help local police officers. In New Orleans, heavily armed operatives from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, are openly patrolling the streets of that beleaguered city.
Some of the mercenaries were reportedly “deputized” by the Louisiana governor and were issued gold Louisiana State law enforcement badges to wear on their chests and Blackwater photo identification
cards to be worn on their arms.
Blackwater or Bloodwater? The New World Order’s New World Military.
Vice Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards was caught visiting his mistress and secret love child at 2:40 this morning in a Los Angeles hotel by the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.
The married ex-senator from North Carolina – whose wife Elizabeth continues to battle cancer — met with his mistress, blonde divorcée Rielle Hunter, at the Beverly Hilton on Monday night, July 21 – and the NATIONAL ENQUIRER was there! He didn’t leave until early the next morning.
Rielle had driven to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara with a male friend for the rendezvous with Edwards. The former senator attended a press event Monday afternoon with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on the topic of how to combat homelessness.
A Beverly Hills hotel security guard told FOXNews.com he intervened this week between a man he identified as former Sen. John Edwards and tabloid reporters who chased down the former presidential hopeful after what they’re calling a rendezvous with his mistress and love child.
The Beverly Hilton Hotel guard said he encountered a shaken and ashen-faced Edwards — whom he did not immediately recognize — in a hotel men’s room early Tuesday morning in a literal tug-of-war with reporters on the other side of the door.
“What are they saying about me?” the guard said Edwards asked.
“His face just went totally white,” the guard said, when Edwards was told the reporters were shouting out questions about Edwards and Rielle Hunter, a woman the National Enquirer says is the mother of his child.
The guard said he escorted Edwards, who was not a registered guest at the hotel, out of the building after 2 a.m. Edwards did not say anything while he was escorted out, said the guard, adding that at times the reporters on the scene were “rough on him,” sticking a camera in his face and shouting questions.
The guard did not recognize Edwards at the time of the incident, but said he concluded it was the 2008 presidential hopeful after hearing reports about the incident and finding an Enquirer reporter’s notebook at the scene.
The guard said during the chase the reporters had dropped the notebook, which he picked up. “This book has everything in it on him,” he said, referring to Edwards. The guard later confirmed Edwards’ identity after being shown a photograph.
A former campaign staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told FOXNews.com he wishes he were “more surprised” to hear reports Edwards was visiting Hunter. “I’m definitely upset by it. I wish I was more surprised, though.”
Edwards this week has repeatedly refused to comment on the Enquirer report. Asked about it on Thursday at an event in New Orleans, he said: “I have no idea what you’re asking about. I’ve responded, consistently, to these tabloid allegations by saying I don’t respond to these lies and you know that … and I stand by that.”
The John Edwards scandal that the media is pretending didn’t happen has taken yet another turn today. The reporters from The National Enquirer who actually caught Edwards cheating on his wife have filed a criminal complaint with The Beverly Hills Police Department.
NATIONAL ENQUIRER reporters Alan Butterfield and Alexander Hitchen filed a criminal complaint with the Beverly Hills Police Department on Thursday, July 24, charging that hotel security acted unlawfully while the reporters were trying to question the former senator.
Edwards now could be contacted by police to give an eyewitness account of what occurred.
Obama’s Office Won’t Deny Senator Attended Bilderberg
Tight security around Westfields Marriott suggests Illinois Senator and Hillary Clinton met at elite confab
Senator Barack Obama’s office has refused to deny that the Democratic nominee attended Bilderberg last night following reports that he and Hillary Clinton were present at “an event in Northern Virginia.”
As we reported earlier today, Obama’s press entourage were not informed of his secret meeting with Hillary Clinton in Northern Virginia until they were literally locked inside a plane that was taxiing down the runway on its way to Chicago.
Reporters were duped into believing that they were getting on a plane back to the campaign headquarters in Chicago with the presumptive nominee, while in reality Obama’s motorcade instead sped off in secrecy to Northern Virginia, which is also the scene of this week’s Bilderberg conference. The plane was stationed at Dulles International, which is less than a 20 minute drive from Chantilly Virginia as is shown below.
Bilderberg sleuth Jim Tucker called Obama’s office today to ask if he had attended Bilderberg. A campaign spokeswoman refused to discuss the matter but would not deny that Obama had attended Bilderberg.
According to Alex Jones, security is so tight around Bilderberg that it does befit the visit of a potential future President.
Armored cars, men in suits hanging out of vehicles with guns and what looked like Marines have all been spotted in the vicinity of the Westfields Marriott.
Despite the controversy of Obama and Hillary’s secret meeting and its obvious link to the ongoing Bilderberg conference, not one U.S. corporate media outlet, or any mainstream media outlet, has reported on over a hundred of the world’s most powerful people meeting in secret on U.S. soil.
There was one reporter from the Fairfax Times who showed up today but they were not completely confident that any such report would make it to print.
Press Let Rip At Obama Spokesman Over Exclusion From Secret Meeting
Reporters flown out of Washington as nominee meets Hillary at Bilderberg confab
It has emerged that Obama’s press entourage were not informed of his secret meeting with Hillary Clinton in Northern Virginia until they were literally locked inside a plane that was taxiing down the runway on its way to Chicago.
Reporters were duped into believing that they were getting on a plane back to the campaign headquarters in Chicago with the presumptive nominee, while in reality Obama’s motorcade instead sped off in secrecy to Northern Virginia.
“Why were we not told about this meeting until we were on the plane, the doors were shut and the plane was about to taxi to take off?” one reporter asked Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs in a heated exchange that was caught on camera by CNN.
“Senator Obama had a desire to do some meetings, others had a desire to meet with him tonight in a private way and that is what we are doing.” Gibbs replied.
“Is there more than one meeting, is there more than one person with whom he is meeting” asked another reporter.
“I am not going to get into all the details of the meeting.” Gibbs fired back.
Gibbs denied that the secret meetings were planned beforehand and indicated Obama’s attendance was a last minute rearrangement.
“There was a desire to do some meetings tonight, he was interested in doing them, others were interested in doing them, and to do them in a way that was private.” Gibbs repeated.
“If the president goes bike riding, we go with him. If he goes out to dinner or goes to visit a friend three blocks up the road, we go with him in the motorcade,” another reporter told Gibbs. “That’s the expectation in a general election, and that’s the way it’s been with previous candidates…That’s the way it is done.”
“You could tell the media you’re having a private meeting and give them the option of not getting on the plane.” came another comment. Of course, had this transpired, the media would most probably have connected the location of the Obama/Hillary meeting with that of the Bilderberg group.
The last thing the Bilderberg elite would have wanted was a confused and inquisitive mob of journalists at their Marriott hotel doorstep, along with scores of protesters and alternative media reporters such as Infowars’ Alex Jones, American Free Press Editor Jim Tucker and We Are Change’s Luke Rudkowski.
Following an unusual solitary press release this morning, a full list of the attendees of this year’s Bilderberg meeting has been released. It would hardly be surprising to find Obama and Clinton rubbing shoulders with the likes of Condoleeza Rice, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, former White House advisor Richard Perle and former Deputy Secretary of Defense and President of the World Bank Paul Wolfowitz.
Also in attendance is Bilderberg luminary and top corporate elitist James A. Johnson, who, as we reported last month, will select Obama’s running mate for the 2008 election and in turn potentially act as kingmaker for America’s future President.
It is now seems increasingly likely that the secret meetings with Bilderberg this weekend will herald the decision to name Hillary Clinton as Obama’s VP candidate.
Although coming on like a freight train as the Messiah For Change, Barack Obama’s just another poodle of the powerbrokers when it comes to who will be his Veep.
Visit to Mrs. Clinton notwithstanding, Obama’s in no position to play favours in the vice president department, the big boys will decide who fills that slot.
“It has been announced that Bilderberg luminary and top corporate elitist James A. Johnson will select Democratic candidate Barack Obama’s running mate for the 2008 election and in turn potentially act as a kingmaker for America’s future president.” (Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet, May 23, 2008).
For the Bilderberg uninitiated, Johnson also selected John Kerry’s running mate John Edwards in 2004 after Edwards had impressed Bilderberg elitists Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller with a speech he gave at the globalist conflab in Italy that year, says Prison Planet.
For all of their power, Bilderberg Pooh-bahs are just as vulnerable to political speeches as are their lessers known as John & Josephine Q. Public.
Bilderbergers pull the puppet strings of contemporary politicians. While the media tends to present Bilderberger luminaries as bigwigs in pinstripe suits attending endless secret meetings, they’re the global elitists pushing the envelope on one-world government.
“In reality, the group is shaping some of the primary developments in the domestic and geopolitical arena today, particularly in the context of oil prices which continue to accelerate towards Bilderberg’s target of $200 dollars a barrel.” (Prison Planet).
Some say it is the Bilderbergers behind all market trends.
Having to march along to the tunes of Bilderberg Blues Band makes Obama’s promise for change something of a mirage.
In the opinion of Prison Planet, “It also ridicules once again any notion that an Obama presidency would bring “change” to the status quo of America being ruled by an unelected corporate and military-industrial complex elite.”
“Former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson has been asked by Senator Barack Obama on Thursday to start the search for a viable Vice Presidential candidate,” reports Trans World News.
“Johnson and Obama are starting the top-secret search as Obama edges closer to the Democratic nomination. Johnson did the same job for Democratic nominees John Kerry in 2004 and Walter Mondale in 1984.”
“The report lists Johnson as a member of “American Friends of Bilderberg,” which is an offshoot Bilderberg front group that has accepted donations from the Ford Foundation to fund Bilderberg meetings where lavish hotels are entirely booked up for three days, by no means an inexpensive feat. The organization is basically a steering committee for the Bilderberg Group—a secretarial outpost through which Bilderberg conferences are organized.
“Johnson has also directly attended Bilderberg meetings, therefore he can be classed as a Bilderberg luminary. He attended last years’s meeting in Istanbul, Turkey.
“Johnson is also “A vice chairman of the private banking firm Perseus LLC, a position he has held since 2001. He is also a board member at Goldman Sachs, Gannett Company Inc., a media holding group, KB Home, a home construction firm, Target Corporation, Temple-Inland and UnitedHealth Group.
“Predictably, he is also a member of the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations.
In 2004 it was reported that John Edwards’ Goody Two Shoes performance in front of the Bilderberg big boys in Italy was a factor in his selection as John Kerry’s Number Two. Edwards was so in sync with the brass that attendees even dispensed with house rules to applaud him at the end of the speech he gave about American politics.
That time, Johnson himself selected Edwards in a last-minute change decision after it appeared as though Dick Gephardt was going to secure the position. The New York Post even reported that Gephardt had been chosen and “Kerry-Gephardt” stickers were being placed on campaign vehicles before being removed when Edwards was announced as Kerry’s handmaiden.
Kerry, of course went on to lose to what Prison Planet calls “his fellow Skull and Bones member George W. Bush.
“But with Obama enjoying an 8-point lead over Republican candidate John McCain, this year’s running mate decision is all the more important, with the individual selected likely to have a shot at becoming President in 2012.
“Bilderberg has a proven history of acting in a kingmaker capacity. Both Bill Clinton and Tony Blair attended Bilderberg meetings in the early 90’s before becoming President and Prime Minister respectively.”
History may record the Democrats bringing both the first black and first female president and vice president to the White House.
Barack Obama may look like the Messiah For Change when in reality he’s just another Bildeberg Boy.
WeAreChange confronts Bill and Hillary Clinton on Bilderberg
Harris Calls For Resignations In New Hampshire Recount Fiasco Vote fraud expert convinced chain of custody is corrupt, says “criminal enterprise” is at work
Fresh from her confrontations in New Hampshire during which public officials were grilled about slapdash chain of custody and ballot box tampering issues, Bev Harris told the Alex Jones Show that a “criminal enterprise” is running the primary recount and has called for Secretary of State William Gardner to resign and his assistant to be fired.
Harris was fundamental in the vetting and production of the HBO special Hacking Democracy, and has contributed towards bringing charges against vote fraudsters who cheated in Ohio in 2004.
Harris traveled to New Hampshire personally to discover for herself the disgraceful lapses in chain of custody for the memory cards and ballot boxes used in the recent primary.
Harris is featured in the video below asking public officials about slits in ballot boxes as they bizarrely deny that the slits are big enough to allow tampering, amongst a myriad of other disturbing questions about chain of custody. Follow-up questions are frowned upon and one official calls security to have Harris removed.
Following Republican candidate Albert Howard’s attempts to oversee the recount, Harris said “I knew that somebody needed to get to New Hampshire and protect or find out what they’re doing with chain of custody of the ballots….New Hampshire has the memory cards for 81 per cent of its votes counted by this one company – we found there was a convicted felon involved in that….that’s why I wanted to see what the chain of custody was”.
After hooking up with other vote fraud experts, Harris confronted public officials and asked pointed questions about chain of custody.
“The problem was we were either not getting answers or we were getting bizarre answers,” said Harris.
New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner was questioned on the whereabouts of the memory cards that hold electronic records of the votes.
“She kept asking him and ultimately he had to admit he didn’t know where they were, and this is days after the election,” said Harris.
One of the observers followed the ballots back to the vault where they were being stored overnight and noticed slits in the ballot boxes that had not been counted, a complete violation of federal election laws.
“I then came in the next day and asked the assistant Secretary of State David Scanlan – what about that slit in the end of the box?” said Harris, after which Scanlan attempted to dismiss the concern by claiming the slits weren’t big enough to allow tampering (an OJ tries on the glove moment, according to Harris).
One of the observers then proceeded to shame Scanlan by easily sticking her whole hand into the ballot box.
Officials then claimed that a special tape was in place to seal the box, bt as Harris proves in the video, the tape can easily be peeled off and re-applied.
“It’s a post-it note,” said Harris, “You can rip it on and off, on and off.”
Harris then discovered that the ballot boxes were not being transfered from state to state by police as should be the case, but by “Butch and Hoppy,” two truck drivers who raced around the state at high speed endangering people and and employing evasive manoevers to escape from observers who were following them.
“We caught them meeting up with a green jeep in the middle of nowhere half way through their route and we walk up to them and they drive off in a different direction,” said Harris.
“I wanted to see what the ballots looked like when Butch and Hoppy take them off the truck, well sure enough they didn’t have seals on them and some of them weren’t even closed – they had the box top open with big gashes and tears in them,” said Harris, who also revealed how officials left ballots in their offices and did not store them in secure vaults.
“Every way that it could break down it seemed to have broken down,” said Harris, “Even to the extent of just not following procedures”.
“How can you say that you can open someone’s ballot box without them present?” asked Harris.
Based on her experiences with the sham nature of the process, Harris called for the resignation of the Secretary of State Gardener and his assistant David Scanlan.
“I think assistant Secretary of State David Scanlan, who is actually their operations guy, should be dismissed from his position and the Secretary of State should resign, and they need to refund the money for both candidates and recount all those ballots in public,” said Harris.
“What they’re doing here is a criminal enterprise,” she added, “It has all the earmarks of it.”
Huge disparities between votes cast on Diebold electronic voting machines and actual hand counted tallies are emerging during the New Hampshire recount, with Hillary Clinton gaining the most from over a hundred unaccounted for votes in one Manchester Ward.
The recount in Manchester’s Ward 5 revealed a disparity whereby establishment candidates received over a hundred ‘black hole’ votes between them that could not be tallied during the hand count.
Diebold Result
Hand Count
CLINTON
683
619
EDWARDS
255
217
OBAMA
404
365
At the moment there is no indication of where these extra votes came from, but the figures again cast the accuracy of Diebold voting machines into severe doubt and provide further evidence of the need for a return to hand counted paper ballots only in all federal elections.
Brad Friedman at The Brad Blog continues to provide great coverage of the recount, unlike New Hampshire’s foremost news outlet WMUR, whose “only source seems to be whatever (New Hampshire Secretary of State) Gardner tells them,” according to Friedman.
In addition, 550 ballots in Stratham were not read by the Diebold machines at all and were rejected as blank ballots.
Voting Rights attorney John Bonifaz also told Friedman of his deep concerns about the transparency of both the initial election as well as the recount.
“I’m very concerned that this is not a fully transparent process that is happening there,” he said.
Diebold memory cards used in New Hampshire, which have been proven to be vulnerable to hacking and could easily be used to steal an election, are “missing” according to state officials.
Bonifaz, “Says he was told by Secretary of State William Gardner that his office doesn’t get involved in tracking what happens to those memory cards. Some have reportedly been returned to LHS, and may have had their memory erased already,” reports Friedman.
“When you have a private company counting 80% of the votes, and you later learn that the memory cards are unaccounted for, you have a serious question about the transparency and accountability in that process,” Bonifaz said.
In another shocking development, vote fraud expert Bev Harris witnessed first hand that a majority of ballot boxes had 8 inch slits in their side. Election Defense Alliance’s Sally Castleman followed the boxes back to the ballot vault and also noticed the cuts. Read Bev’s report here.
No worries, say New Hampshire officials when cuts up to eight inches long are spotted in newly delivered ballot boxes. “The only seal that counts is the one on top.” Except the seal on top can be peeled off without leaving a trace, then reaffixed.
Black Box Voting has been doing a chain of custody exam for the New Hampshire Primary’s recount. On Wednesday night, Election Defense Alliance’s Sally Castleman mentioned a troubling observation: After following the ballots back to the ballot vault following Wednesday’s recount, she had the opportunity to enter the ballot vault, and noticed what looked like cuts, or slits, in the side of many ballot boxes. New Hampshire officials assured us that these cuts, which slice through the tape, seals and box itself do not permit access to the uncounted ballots, pointing to a label on the boxtop which they call a seal. But the “seal” can be removed, like a Post-it, and reaffixed. So it’s not a seal all! We wanted to know if the ballot boxes were slit while in the vault, in the transport van, or came from the towns with slits in them.
I confirmed this morning that many if not most of the boxes scheduled to be counted today had slits in them. I went out when a vanload of ballots arrived, and saw that they were slit at the time they arrived by van. Susan Pynchon and I drove to two nearby towns and watched as they handed over their ballot boxes to “Butch and Hoppy”, the two men who drive around in the state in a van picking the ballots up. We observed as they loaded boxes of ballots into the van with no slits at all in them. We videotaped each of these up close. They arrived at the destination without slits. The label on the top was affixed, but in some cases was crumpled, or also damaged.Of course, the label affixed to the top can be removed and reattached without telltale signs.No vault tonightA significant departure from the normal chain of custody path occurred tonight. They decided not to use the vault to store the ballots.
Edwards and Obama LIE about not taking money from lobbyists
Obama claims at the Nevada debate: “I don’t take money from federal lobbyists…” when in fact all 3 democratic candidates take money from lobbyists
Hillary Clinton: $567,950
John McCain: $340,365
Mitt Romney: $229,475
Rudolph W. Giuliani: $212,100
Fred Thompson: $90,000 Barack Obama: $76,859
Duncan Hunter: $30,900 John Edwards: $18,900
Mike Huckabee: $6,964
Ron Paul: $0
Dennis Kucinich: $0
By the way, some of the people who dropped out took money too, but I cut the list down for ease of use. One could argue that Kucinch or Hunter really aren’t in the race anymore, but they’re still polling in some places. Paul is definitely still pulling support, but not a ton.
However, Mike Gravel and Alan Keyes do not make the list because they weren’t serious in the first place. Sorry guys. Better luck next time.
Ron Paul’s 10% In Iowa Shocks Establishment Media
Even Fox News’ own talking heads think decision to exclude from presidential forum should be reversed
Ron Paul’s double digit support in Iowa has shocked establishment media figures who have long derided the Congressman as an insignificant candidate with just 2 or 3 per cent of the vote. Even Fox News’ own talking heads now agree that Paul should not be excluded from the upcoming presidential forum as campaign momentum builds.
Dr. Paul blew “national frontrunner” Rudy Giuliani out of the water, who got just 4% of the vote, and is handily placed behind McCain and Thompson heading into New Hampshire.
The Congressman’s strong showing has led to new calls for Fox News to reverse the decision to exclude him from the January 6th presidential forum, not from Ron Paul supporters but from Fox News’ own flagship hosts.
“Ten per cent is not insignificant – that’s a huge number,” said Fox’s Greta van Susteren, appearing with host Shep Smith last night. Smith noted that Paul had more than doubled Giuliani’s total.
“Should Fox News reconsider?” asked Smith, to which Susteren responded, “I’m not sure why he’s out of it (the forum).”
“Here you have a candidate that 10 per cent of the people caucused in his party really want him and it’s not like he’s an insignificant player,” she added.
“He didn’t just drop in yesterday to the process, he has been running for president for a long time, and certainly many of the issues he’s raised are rather provocative and certainly stimulate the debate, that’s not a bad thing – and why not pull up another chair?” Susteren concluded.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Larry King also noted Paul’s double digit finish during a discussion last night.
“Ron Paul I think is gonna be a factor in New Hampshire on the Republican side much more than he was in Iowa given all the Independents there so let’s not neglect Ron Paul when we’re talking about this,” remarked Blitzer.
The morning after Ron Paul’s stronger-than-expected 10% showing in Iowa was no surprise to Paul supporters (and probably disappointing to some), but it had to come as a bit of a surprise to most of the pollsters. Over the past week, most pollsters had Paul in the 5-8% range. So 10% pushes the limit on “margin of error” and suggests that Paul supporters have been right all along. His support is underrepresented in the polls.
Paul wasn’t the only candidate the pollsters were wrong about. Rudy Giuliani was consistently polling in mid-teen double-digits up until about a week ago, but he ended up at 4%. He had fallen to the 5-8% range within the past few days, but 4% has to be considered a monumental drop for him. Mike Huckabee’s poll numbers were consistently 5 points lower than what he actually got. The other candidates were pretty much in line with what the pollsters thought they would get.
It’s not a surprise that Huckabee picked up extra points the night of the caucus. People love to vote for the likely “winner,” which is probably where his extra 5% comes from, but the Giuliani and Paul numbers should give pollsters pause to reconsider. Essentially, it looks like Giuliani lost the lion’s share of his support to Paul and Huckabee.
CNN entrance polls are even more interesting when you look at them up close.
For instance (and not surprisingly) when asked to rate their feelings about the Bush administration, Paul supporters represented 54% of those said they were “angry” at Bush out of all “angry” voters. These represented only 5% of the overall totals, which is also not surprising given that most Republican activists are Bush supporters, but it’s very helpful in terms of understanding how much pull Paul could have among the overall electorate who tend to hold our current King George in relatively low esteem.
Paul was also the clear winner among Republican caucus goers who view themselves as being “independent” rather than identifying with the Republican party, with 29% of that group’s support (well ahead of Romney at 19%). Independents accounted for 13% of overall Republican caucus goers.
Paul’s support is stronger among lower-income Americans. He tied for third with John McCain with 14% of people making less than $50,000 a year, and scored a high of 18% (second place) among those making $15,000 to $30,000 annually.
He also finished a strong third among young Iowans. Voters in the 18-29 age range picked Paul 21% of the time, just one tick behind Romney who was in second place.
One thing I couldn’t find was any reference to what the results were among cell phone users. We may have to wait awhile before this information comes out, but it would be very interesting to see how much of Paul’s extra support came from voters who have cell phones but not land lines.
The Stages of Ron Paul
Ron Paul’s showing in Iowa is only a phase in a larger picture.
Nolan Chart
January 4, 2007
The Caucus held in Iowa last night is an important stage of the Ron Paul movement and cannot be discounted. Although the Mainstream media will ignore/discredit his numbers, they really do show positive hope for him. Here are 7 stages of his candidacy.
1- The first stage is when he announced he was running. this was about 9 months ago. He had few followers, (I was in this group) and was not taken seriously at all.
2- The second stage is the “few internet spammers” stage. This is when he was accused of having a few 16 year old kids in their moms basement as his supporters.
3- The Internet phenomenon. Online polls started picking up. The meetup groups started forming. It soon became apparent that he was a force online. This soon converted to the straw poll stage. Of course still not taken seriously.
4- The mass fundraising stage. Guy Fawkes says it all. The Boston Tea party showed the world that there is a real revolution going on… Still not taken seriously by MSM.
5- This is the stage we are in now. This is the stage where we find out if internet support can convert to real votes. It appears in Iowa, where Ron Paul did not campaign that much and has views unpopular for farmers had a very well outcome. This is the stage where the rubber meets the road so to speak.
6- The rising star stage. hopefully New Hampshire will propel him into the underdog gone mainstream status.
7- The Viable electable stage. He has the money already. He has a fervent base. He has proven he can bring people to the polls. He just needs the push to get here.
I say this to encourage. I cannot predict the future, but it seems like it could be well with him. Even when the MSM is gloom and doom, it is only spin, and might not be consistant with reality.
Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich on Tuesday asked his supporters to make rival Barack Obama their second choice if he doesn’t meet a cutoff point for voting in Iowa’s caucuses.
Kucinich, an Ohio congressman at the back of the pack of Democratic hopefuls, seemed to concede a loss in the caucuses. He said his recommendation was for “Iowa only.”
“Senator Obama and I are competing in the New Hampshire primary next Tuesday, where I want to be the first choice of New Hampshire voters,” Kucinich said in a statement.
Candidates in Thursday night’s caucuses must reach a level of support in each of the state’s 1,781 precincts – typically 15 percent of those who attend. Candidates who fail to meet that aren’t considered viable, and their supporters can move to another candidate or go home.
“I hope Iowans will caucus for me as their first choice … because of my singular positions on the war, on health care and trade,” Kucinich said. “But in those caucus locations where my support doesn’t reach the necessary threshold, I strongly encourage all of my supporters to make Barack Obama their second choice.”
I can’t believe I actually made the mistake of voting for this guy. But then, all of us are entitled to a mistake or two.
From Politico: “Ralph Nader unleashed on Hillary Rodham Clinton Monday — criticizing her for being soft on defense spending and a chum of big business — and expressed his strong support for John Edwards.”
That is, for the CFR’s candidate, as Edwards is their darling. I don’t know if Nader is unaware of this. No, he is really too smart to be that brain dead. Obviously, Ralph Nader is a shill for the New World Order. It figures.
In an 11th hour effort to encourage liberal Iowans to “recognize” Edwards by “giving him a victory,” the activist and former presidential contender said in an interview that Clinton will “pander to corporate interest groups” if elected.
Nader specifically accused Clinton of failing to challenge military spending because “she is a woman who doesn’t want to be labeled as soft on defense and she doesn’t want to be shown as taking on big business.”
Sure, Ralph. And Edwards will dismantle the military-intelligence network and send the corporate death merchants a-running for shelter.
And there is a bridge in Brooklyn and it is for sale, too.
Nader, a four-time presidential candidate, called Edwards a Democratic “glimmer of hope.” He has long criticized Democrats as indistinguishable from Republicans, chiding both parties as slaves to corporate financing and interests.
It was Nader who famously — or infamously to many Democrats — siphoned off enough liberal votes from Al Gore in 2000 to hand New Hampshire and Florida, and as a result, the presidency, to George W. Bush. Since 2004, however, Nader has been increasingly controversial within the political left. He was booed at a national conference of progressives earlier this year.
Is the CFR a “glimmer of hope”?
It is if you are a fan of one-world government, as Nader apparently is. Does Ralph believe the machinations of the Rockefeller Foundation and Carnegie Foundation are in the best interest of the American people?
“The CFR is the American Branch of a society which originated in England, and which believes that national boundaries should be obliterated, and a one-world rule established,” explained the late CFR historian Carroll Quigley, who served as Bill Clinton’s mentor. “The most powerful clique in these elitist groups have one objective in common — they want to bring about the surrender of the sovereignty of the national independence of the United States. A second clique of international members in the CFR comprises the Wall Street international bankers and their key agents. Primarily, they want the world banking monopoly from whatever power ends up in the control of global government,” declared Rear Admiral Chester Ward, a former member of the CFR.
But let’s be fair — John Edwards is not a member of the CFR. He only hangs out with them. Earlier this year he delivered a speech to the CFR faithful and warmed the cockles of their hearts. He co-chaired a CFR task force with Jack Kemp. John Edwards is a consummate insider and he will deliver our sovereignty to the globalists on a silver platter.
U.S. President George Bush said he would sign a U.S.-Peru free-trade agreement that cleared Congress Tuesday.
The Senate approved the free trade pact by a 77-18 vote.
“This agreement will level the playing field for American exporters and investors and will expand an important market in this hemisphere for U.S. goods and services, which will help strengthen economic growth and job creation in the United States,” Bush said.
“I look forward to signing this legislation into law.”
The agreement was modified in May under pressure from Democrats to take into account environmental and human rights concerns.
The deal will let more than 90 percent of U.S. products enter Peru’s growing market duty-free. Most Peruvian products already have duty-free access to the United States.
The House approved the agreement by a 285-132 vote Nov. 8.
As Senate’s ’08 presidential hopefuls absent, Peru free trade deal approved
Hillary, Obama and McCain absent while NAFTA expansion bill is approved
The Senate approved a free trade agreement with Peru Tuesday that could have highlighted differences on trade among the Senate’s Democrats running for president — if any of them had been able to attend the vote.
All of the chamber’s Democratic presidential hopefuls were busy Tuesday afternoon taking part in a debate sponsored by National Public Radio, and as a result missed the vote on a controversial issue that former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) has been trying to use against his main competitors for the Democratic nomination.
Their presence would not have made a difference in the outcome. As expected, the Peru deal was easily approved, 77-18.
The deal had divided the leading contenders for the Democratic nomination. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) had previously announced support for the Peru agreement, despite criticism from Edwards that the deal would contribute to U.S. job losses. All three are in a tight race in the first-in-the-nation caucus in Iowa, where some polls show a statistical dead heat.
Two other Democrats, Sens. Chris Dodd (Conn.) and Joseph Biden (Del.), had announced opposition to the Peru agreement.
GOP Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), another presidential candidate, also missed the vote. However, trade has been less divisive among Republicans running for president.
noworldsystem.com note:
This bill will:
* Continue to flood the U.S. with cheap foreign goods
* Lead to more U.S. layoffs and job outsourcing to other nations.
* Depress U.S. wages
* Increase the U.S. Trade debt
* Greatly expand the destruction of the Amazon rain forest
* Increased Animal suffering with a huge expansion of factory farms
* Increase Illegal Immigration into the U.S., as factory farms put Peruvian farmers out of business
Zogby Analyst Says Ron Paul Strongest Contender to Beat Hillary
Texas Congressman’s popularity amongst Democrats, Independents outstrips Giuliani, Romney, Thompson, Paul is only chance of smashing Bush-Clinton power monopoly
Zogby’s Director of Communications and polling analyst Fritz Wenzel says that Congressman Ron Paul is the strongest of the Republican frontrunners to go up against Hillary Clinton, underlining the fact that the rest of the field are just ringers as the establishment prepares to install Clinton and prolong the Bush-Clinton power monopoly.
“Among Democrats, yes, he would be a much stronger candidate than any of the other three (Romney, Giuliani, Thompson)” Wenzel told the Alex Jones Show yesterday.
A new Zogby poll commissioned by Jones Productions found Ron Paul the GOP winner in a blind poll that included Democrats, Republicans and Independents nationwide.
“He is anti-war and the majority of Democrats are anti-war, he has some other ideas and policies and stances on issues more attractive to Democrats, particularly conservative Democrats,” said Wenzel.
“Even among independents, he is far and away a more attractive candidate,” he added.
As we have highlighted before , Ron Paul is the only Republican candidate who will not seek to lead the U.S. into a military confrontation with Iran, something that leading Democrats Obama, Clinton and Edwards have all vowed to keep “on the table.”
Ron Paul voted against the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act, both of which were supported by Hillary Clinton.
Every other Republican candidate besides Ron Paul stands no chance of coming out on top if they go up against Hillary Clinton for the 2008 presidency.
Wenzel agreed that Ron Paul’s momentum is something that outstrips all the other candidates and gives him a real chance of performing well.
“He’s right on schedule,” Wenzel said. “He’s making all the right moves, going in the right direction…at a time when other candidates are not moving.”
Wenzel based his analysis on recent nationwide polls that show Ron Paul could win in New Hampshire and find his support intensifying with room to gain.
“Here’s why his timing is almost perfect. He’s moving up…but it’s not so early that he’s going to get a big backlash,” Wenzel added.
“6 weeks to 8 weeks out before an election is about the time if you’re going to make a big move from the back to the front– that’s when you want to make it,” he concluded.
The defense industry this year abandoned its decade-long commitment to the Republican Party, funneling the lion share of its contributions to Democratic presidential candidates, especially to Hillary Clinton who far out-paced all her competitors.
An examination of contributions of $500 or more, using the Huffington Post’s Fundrace website, shows that employees of the top five arms makers – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics — gave Democratic presidential candidates $103,900, with only $86,800 going to Republicans.
Senator Clinton took in $52,600, more than half of the total going to all Democrats, and a figure equaling 60 percent of the sum going to the entire GOP field. Her closest competitor for defense industry money is former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R.), who raised $32,000.
Insofar as defense workers making political donations reflect the interests of their employers, the contributions clearly suggest that the arms industry has reach the conclusion that Democratic prospects for 2008 are very good indeed. Since their profits are so heavily dependent on government contracts, companies in this field want to be sure they do not have hostile relations with the White House.
The strong support for Clinton indicates that a majority of defense industry executives currently believe Clinton is a favorite to win the Democratic nomination and, in November, 2008, the general election.
In the 2004 presidential race, defense company workers, almost all of them upper-level employees, gave George W. Bush $819,358, more than twice the $366,870 received by John Kerry. Similarly, in House and Senate races over the past 10 years, the defense industry has favored Republicans over Democrats by a 3-2 margin.
Republicans holding public office almost always provide much stronger support for weapons programs and other Pentagon spending than do Democrats.
In an unexpected development, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee and a decorated Vietnam War veteran, raised just $19,200, barely more than the $18,500 collected by Texas Representative Ron Paul (R.).
No other Democrat came near Clinton’s totals. Running second to her in the competition for Pentagon contractors’ cash was Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn), who raised $13,200, almost all from executives of General Dynamics which has a major submarine building facility in Groton, Conn.
Former Senator John Edwards (D-N. Car.) raised $12,200 and Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D) took in $10,000.
Clinton’s major industry benefactors – donors who gave the $4,600 maximum allowed by law — include Roger A. Crone, Boeing’s president of Network and Space Systems; Stanley Roth, Boeing’s Vice President for Asia, International Relations, $4,600; Anne Sullivan, a Raytheon attorney; William Lynn, Raytheon’s Senior Vice President for Government Relations; and Michele Kang, Northrop Grumman Vice President for health science solutions.
Below is a synopsis of this soon to be released book direct from the Council on Foreign Relations.
This book surveys the prospects for regional monetary integration in various parts of the world. Beginning with a brief review of the theory of optimal currency areas, it goes on to examine the structure and functioning of the European Monetary Union, then turns to the prospects for monetary integration elsewhere in the world—North America, South America, and East Asia. Such cooperation may take the form of full-fledged monetary unions or looser forms of monetary cooperation. Regional Monetary Integration emphasizes the economic and institutional requirements for successful monetary integration, including the need for a single central bank in the case of a full-fledged monetary union and the corresponding need for multinational institutions to safeguard the bank’s independence and assure its accountability. The book concludes with a chapter on the implications of monetary integration for the United States and the U.S. dollar.
According to the synopsis, the authors endorse the concept of a regional central bank to control a regional monetary union. The authors see prospects for regional monetary integration in North America, South America and Asia. With this in mind, it is clear that these two authors support the concept of a North American Central Bank, a South American Central Bank and an Asian Central Bank to control monetary policy in those regions of the world.
This is not the first time that the Council on Foreign Relations has released material endorsing the idea of regional currencies. Benn Steil another member of the Council on Foreign Relations wrote an essay entitled The End Of National Currency which concluded that national currencies were incompatible with a global economy.
This book release from the CFR is more proof that this think tank seeks to undermine national sovereignty not just here in the United States but around the world.
Bill Clinton’s mentor, Carole Quigley was quoted as saying the following about the CFR.
“The CFR is the American Branch of a society which originated in England and believes national boundaries should be obliterated and one-world rule established.”
The power and influence of the CFR is much like a shadow government. Several of the 2008 Presidential candidates including the likes of Mitt Romney, John McCain, Fred Thompson, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton are either members or have close affiliations with this think tank. What are the odds that so many people running for President would be linked to this group? More proof of their influence can be seen with their Building a North American Community document which laid out much of what eventually became the Security and Prosperity Partnership the 2005 agreement with Canada and Mexico that George W. Bush went along with despite all sorts of Constitutional problems with him doing so.
This new book from the CFR should give us insight into how we will see the global elites attempt monetary integration in various regions of the world. The book is set to be released in November of 2007. If anything, the title of the book shows that these people care not about the American people’s wishes or the Constitution. They are hell bent on furthering the aims of globalism through the creation of regional institutions and eventually a one world government.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Republican White House candidates pounded Iran Tuesday, with Rudolph Giuliani warning of a military strike to deprive it of a nuclear bomb, and a top rival lashing “terror masters” in Tehran.
The candidates talked tough before the receptive audience of the Republican Jewish Coalition, fleshing out already hawkish stands on the Iran, emerging as a dominant foreign policy issue in the 2008 campaign.
Giuliani, running on his legacy as New York’s mayor after the September 11 attacks in 2001, sharpened his rhetoric as the campaign raced towards first party nominating contests in less than 90 days.
The date of the first of those contests, the fabled Iowa caucuses was expected to be set by Republicans in the state later Tuesday for January 3, in the earliest start ever to a US electoral contest.
Giuliani said every new American president prayed to avoid war, but accused Tehran of backing attacks on US troops in Iraq, and ruled out the notion of America learning to live with a nuclear Iran.
“We have seen what Iran will do with ordinary weapons,” Giuliani told a forum of presidential candidates organized by the coalition.
“If I am president of the United States, I guarantee you, we will never find out what they will do if they get nuclear weapons, because they are not going to get a nuclear weapon.”
“The military option is not off the table. If America is clear that we will exercise the military option, the chances that we will have to do it decline.”
Giuliani, who leads national Republican polls, said there was no doubt Iran was building nuclear weapons — a charge Tehran denies, saying its effort is designed to meet energy needs.
Fred Thompson, the former actor and senator who jumped into the race last month, hit out at Iran and Syria, a tactic popular with the hawkish base of core Republican voters candidates are trying to woo.
“The terror masters in Tehran and Damascus make only the most minor distinction between America and Israel,” Thompson said.
“They say America is the ‘Great Satan’ and Israel is the ‘Little Satan’ and both must be destroyed.
“The US must make it clear that we will not allow Iran to be a nuclear threat,” Thompson said, calling for greater steps to get rid of the “hated regime” in Tehran.
Attacking Iran is good politics for Republican candidates, allowing them to pose as robust on national security, paper over differences with the party’s social conservative wing, and detract attention from the issue of what to do about Iraq.
Hawkish rhetoric is part of every US election campaign, though it is not always followed up with action, once the victorious candidate faces the reality of conducting foreign policy in a difficult world.
Giuliani also used the issue of Iran to hammer another rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
At a debate on October 9, Romney, asked whether he would seek authorization from Congress before launching a military strike against Iran, replied: “You sit down with your attorneys and they tell you what you have to do.”
Giuliani compared the moment to when he threw late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat out of a United Nations concert in New York.
“I didn’t call for a team of lawyers, to tell me, ‘on the one hand we can throw him out, but on the other, maybe we can partially throw him out'”.
“I just made a decision. I led.”
Romney joined other Republicans Tuesday in accusing Democratic 2008 candidates, particularly front-runner Hillary Clinton and her chief rival Barack Obama, of weakness on Iran.
“It is time for Democrats to break their silence and answer this question — will you act to stop a nuclear Iran? Let me assure you I will,” he said.
On Monday, Clinton said in a new foreign policy essay that the United States should offer Tehran a calibrated package of incentives for it to renounce nuclear development, reject terrorism and back Middle East peace moves.
But she and her aides clearly also stated that she would not take the military option off the table if negotiations failed.
AP
October 6, 2007 WASHINGTON – Public relations giant Burson-Marsteller has vast experience steering companies through tough times. But there’s a limit to how much it can help Blackwater USA, a new client that’s been battered by negative publicity.
The State Department, which pays Blackwater hundreds of millions of dollars to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq, has stringent rules barring the private security contractor from discussing with the media the details of its work, according to those familiar with the arrangement.
Under those limitations, it’s difficult to repair a corporate image, said one official close to Blackwater.
The department allows little room for error. On Sept. 16, Blackwater guards were involved in a shoot-out in Baghdad that left 13 Iraqis dead. Blackwater issued a statement to reporters saying its personnel acted lawfully and appropriately to a “hostile attack” from “armed enemies.”
That statement was not cleared first with State officials, a move that prompted complaints from the department because the statement pre-empted official inquiries into the incident. The Iraqis have maintained the Blackwater guards opened fire without provocation.
More recently, Erik Prince, Blackwater’s top executive, appeared with department approval before a congressional committee investigating the company. Although Democrats on the committee were sharply critical of Prince, Blackwater representatives viewed his appearance as a rare and welcome opportunity to respond to their critics.
Even in a hostile hearing room, Prince could at least respond, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to reporters.
Burson-Marsteller was brought aboard by the Washington law firms representing Blackwater — McDermott Will & Emery and Crowell & Moring.
One of the Burson-Marsteller executives working on the Blackwater account is Robert Tappan, a former State Department official who joined Burson-Marsteller in July and is president of the company’s Washington office.
At State, Tappan was deputy assistant secretary for public affairs. While at State, he spent six months in Baghdad as director of strategic communications for the Coalition Provisional Authority, the temporary governing body that disbanded in June 2004.
Paul Cordasco, a spokesman for Burson-Marsteller, said the company does not discuss its clients.
According to the Center for Media and Democracy, Burson-Marsteller clients have included cigarette maker Philip Morris, nuclear power plant owner Entergy and Allergan, the pharmaceutical company that makes Botox.
Blackwater did not return a telephone call and an e-mail seeking comment.
The State Department is one of Blackwater’s largest federal customers. Blackwater and two other private security companies protect U.S. diplomats and facilities in Iraq.
Richard Griffin, head of the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, said Tuesday that Blackwater earns about $473 million annually through the umbrella contract.
Formed in 1997 by Prince, a former Navy SEAL, Blackwater’s business has grown since 2001 as the government’s demand for its security services has increased.
According to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Blackwater has received federal contracts worth more than a $1 billion, with the bulk of its earnings coming from the State Department.
On Tuesday, Prince, 38, spent several hours at the witness table as Democrats on the oversight committee accused his company of being above the law and his guards of being indifferent to Iraqi casualties.
The fees Blackwater charges are excessive, they said, and Prince and his associates have become wealthy because of the war.
Prince, younger than most members of the committee, calmly fielded the committee’s questions, saying Blackwater personnel have acted appropriately in a chaotic environment. He received strong support from several Republicans, who said the criticism is motivated mainly by Prince’s connections to Republican causes.
Len Biegel, a crisis management consultant who advised Johnson & Johnson 25 years ago during the Tylenol product-tampering case, said the Blackwater situation has escalated beyond a public relations emergency.
“It’s really threatening the reputation of the company,” Biegel said. “That puts it into the crisis category.”
If Blackwater is to survive the crisis, Biegel said, it needs to show that it’s making the changes necessary to prevent a repeat of situations that have cast it in such a negative light.
“It’s not simply what is said by Blackwater, but what actions beyond the initial steps are they taking,” Biegel said.
At the hearing, Prince said he supported legislation authored by Rep. David Price, D-N.C., that would ensure the U.S. government has the legal authority to prosecute crimes committed by contractors working in war zones.
On Thursday, the House overwhelming approved Price’s bill.
Beau Phillips, a partner with the public relations firm Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter and Associates, said Blackwater needs to continue stressing that most of its employees are former military personnel.
“They need to help people understand that as you attack Blackwater, you’re really attacking soldiers in a sense,” Phillips said. “I think that’s a message that would be helpful.”
That may be a hard sell, however, given the unpopularity of the war in Iraq.
What was acceptable for defense contractors three years ago “will raise investigators’ blood pressure today,” said Richard Levick, a crisis communications expert and president of Levick Strategic Communications.
Even a half hour after Ron Paul‘s “Revolution” rally ended in downtown Manchester, there was a crowd larger than other candidates could only hope to draw. The campaign estimated that as many as 800 people showed up as the Texas congressman kicked off a canvassing effort in New Hampshire’s three largest cities.
The campaign gave out buttons asking: “Who is Ron Paul?” But who are Ron Paul’s supporters? “I think they’re new to the process,” said Paul’s son, Rand Paul. “We definitely have Democrats that are crossing over, Libertarians crossing over, Independents crossing over. And I think the people that come out are definitely gonna vote.”
Rand Paul said that every day he’s surprised at “how big” his father’s campaign has gotten. Last week, they asked supporters to raise $500,000. “They passed that in three days, and now we’re asking them to raise a million,” Rand Paul said. By Sunday, they had done just that. And Rand Paul said his father might end the third fundraising quarter with more cash on hand than most of the other Republicans. “We may have more money on hand than Romney if you subtract what he’s given himself,” he said.
Paul rejected a comparison to Howard Dean‘s Internet fueled 2004 campaign, which fizzled by the time votes were actually cast. “My dad has been going around the country for 30 years, and has a following,” Paul said. “It’s definitely a committed core. Howard Dean didn’t have that cohesive message and a philosophy.” What Dean and Paul have in common is their anti-war message. And Paul said his father’s stance makes him the Republican with “the best chance of getting independent voters over.”
Once again New Hampshire’s state-wide TV station apparently declined to cover GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-Tex), even though his well-attended “Family Day” rally took place this past weekend in Manchester where WMUR is headquartered.
Sources close to the rally claimed that WMUR cameras and reporters were nowhere to be seen. The seeming lack of coverage by the TV station is notable, because New Hampshire’s newspapers do not reach the state’s several million citizens the way its single, state-wide TV station can. In one or two segments, WMUR 9 – an ABC affiliate – could educate hundreds of thousands of viewers about Ron Paul’s libertarian-constitutionalist message. Additionally, local coverage has a chance of being picked up by the national ABC network. But that coverage has, according to Ron Paul sources, been minimal thus far.
When it came to the recent Family Walk, the WMUR station was called numerous times, according to sources close to the campaign. The answer volunteers and staffers received was always the same: The station does not select news stories until the day of the event. In this case, WMUR eventually made a decision to cover presidential candidates John McCain and John Edwards, and reportedly two other candidates as well.
FMNN came into the possession of an email making the rounds in New Hampshire that stated WMUR actually carried a segment “on four candidates having events in NH this weekend.” But not Ron Paul. WMUR’s lack of enthusiasm for covering the candidate might be more understandable had not 30 of Ron Paul’s children and relatives shown up to campaign for him on Saturday. At nearly the same time, last-minute Ron Paul donations totalled over $1 million, and he is moving up in the New Hampshire polls.
The confluence of news events: the Family Walk, the fund raising, Ron Paul’s headway in New Hampshire would all bode well for signficant news coverage. Yet none was forthcoming from New Hampshire’s only statewide station.
C-Span, as FMNN has reported, covered some of the New Hampshire events that Ron Paul participated in over the weekend, and this makes the lack of coverage by WMUR all the more puzzling.
“Is it bias?” mused one top level Ron Paul volunteer. “Whether or not they approve of Ron Paul, they should make a pretense of being even-handed.”
This volunteer and others said that the WMUR execs that had answered the phone had been cold, short, “even rude.” And she added, “Maybe they were getting a lot of calls. But they still didn’t respond. They never have. In this case they said they were ‘too busy.'”
A search of WMUR archives reveals that the few available clips on Ron Paul are mostly debate-related. The most recent features Ron Paul explaining how the war on drugs has failed, and is from the recent PBS debate. Yet WMUR’s political coverage is seemingly recognized as outstanding. Wikipedia had this to say about WMUR 9:
During election seasons, WMUR is well-known for organizing and producing some of the higher profile candidate debates for ABC News, as well as CNN, before the first United States presidential primary. On March 9, 2005, as a result of its coverage of political events, the station won the “USC Annenberg Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism” for the third consecutive time.
In televised debate, presidential candidate says she supports Israel’s alleged air strike on Syria in which she believes a nuclear facility, built with North Korean aid, was eliminated; says attack on Iran not realistic
Yitzhak Benhorin
WASHINGTON – Leading democratic presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton said she supports Israel’s alleged strike on Syria in an MSNBC debate Wednesday.
The senator said the United States believed Syria has been receiving technological aid from North Korea in an attempt to build a nuclear facility and that Israel has eliminated that facility.
During the debate which was held in New Hampshire, Meet the Press’ Tim Russert pressured the candidates into clarifying whether they would support an Israeli attack on Iran.
In an attempt to avoid the question, Clinton said, “This is a hypothetical question.” Russert defended his question and said it was a realistic one; in return the senator said, “What Israel did in Syria is realistic.”
Russert quoted statements made by leading republican candidate Rudy Giuliani, who said, “We will not allow Iran to become a nuclear power. If we reach such a situation, we will stop them and take them back 8-10 years.”
Clinton quickly responded saying that she too would do everything to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear superpower, but that a diplomatic path of sanctions and direct talks was the way to go, saying that up until now, the US administration has not tried this method.
Clinton’s rivals also commented on the Israeli matter and Senator Barack Obama said the US was Israel’s strong ally and would support the Jewish state in all security matters.
Regarding Iran, Obama agreed with Clinton that a diplomatic channel should be taken with the Islamic republic, and that economic sanctions should be increased.
Obama added that international forces should unite in placing economic pressure on Iran, and that talks about attacking Iran were premature.
Obama criticized Giuliani’s statement calling it “irresponsible” and said such a situation has not yet been reached.
Candidate John Edwards, who is farthest behind in polls, also refused to show any signs of support of military action against Iran.
HANOVER, N.H. – The leading Democratic White House hopefuls conceded Wednesday night they cannot guarantee to pull all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of the next presidential term in 2013.
“I think it’s hard to project four years from now,” said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the opening moments of a campaign debate in the nation’s first primary state.
“It is very difficult to know what we’re going to be inheriting,” added Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
“I cannot make that commitment,” said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.
Sensing an opening, Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson provided the assurances the others would not.
“I’ll get the job done,” said Dodd, while Richardson said he would make sure the troops were home by the end of his first year in office.
Foreign policy blended with domestic issues at the debate on a Dartmouth College stage, and several of the contenders endorsed payroll tax increases to assure a stable Social Security system.
Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, as well as Dodd, Obama and Edwards all said they would apply the tax to income now exempted.
Richardson said he wouldn’t and Clinton refused to say. “I’m not putting anything on the proverbial table” unilaterally, she said.
Current law levies a 6.2 percent payroll tax only on an individual’s first $97,500 in annual income.
Biden also said he was willing to consider gradually raising the retirement age, which is now 67.
Kucinich said that while he favors taxing additional income, he wants to return the retirement age to 65, where it stood until the law was changed in 1983.
Health care, and the drive for universal coverage, also figured in the debate.
“I intend to be the health care president,” said Clinton, adding she can now succeed at an undertaking that defeated her in 1993 when she was first lady.
But Biden said that unnamed special interests were no more willing to work with Clinton now than they were more than a decade ago.
“I’m not suggesting it’s Hillary’s fault…It’s reality,” he said, carefully avoiding a personal attack on the Democrat who leads in the polls.
Biden said a “lot of old stuff comes back” from past battles, adding, “when I say old stuff I mean policy. Policy.”
Across the stage, Clinton smiled at that.
The moment was not the only one in which attention turned to the former first lady, a campaign front-runner bidding to become the first woman president.
Asked whether presidential libraries and foundations should disclose their donors, she said she had sponsored legislation requiring it. Asked whether her husband’s foundation should voluntary disclose, absent a requirement, she said, “you’ll have to ask them.”
“I don’t talk about my private conversations with my husband,” she added.
She seemed to suggest differently at another point, after being asked whether she would ever approve torturing a suspected terrorist to prevent the detonation of a big bomb.
She said no, and Russert said former President Clinton, her husband, once suggested it might be appropriate.
“Well, he’s not standing here right now,” she said, an edge in her voice.
There is a disagreement, Russert rejoined.
“Well, I’ll talk to him later,” she said with a smile.
A question about lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 drew a cheer from the students listening in the Dartmouth auditorium.
And expressions of support only from former Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska and Kucinich.
The opening question of the two-hour debate instantly plunged the eight contenders into the issue that has dominated all others — the war in Iraq.
With the primary season approaching, all eight have vied with increasing intensity for the support of anti-war voters likely to provide money and organizing muscle as the campaign progresses.
Edwards said his position on Iraq was different from Obama and Clinton, adding he would “immediately drawn down 40,000 to 50,000 troops.” That’s roughly half the 100,000 that Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has indicated could be stationed there when President Bush’s term ends in January 2009.
Edwards sought to draw a distinction between his position and Clinton’s, saying she had said recently she wants to continue combat missions in Iraq.
“I do not want to continue combat missions in Iraq,” he said.
Clinton responded quickly, saying Edwards had misstated her position. She said she favors the continued deployment of counterterrorism troops, not forces to engage in the type of combat now under way.
Asked whether they were prepared to use force to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, several of the hopefuls sidestepped. Instead, they said, all diplomacy must be exhausted in the effort.
Moderator Tim Russert of NBC News asked about Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani’s pledge to set back Iran by eight to 10 years if it tries to gain nuclear standing.
Biden flashed anger at the mention of the former New York mayor. “Rudy Giuliani doesn’t know what the heck he’s talking about,” said Delaware senator, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“He’s the most uninformed person on foreign policy that’s now running for president.”
The debate unfolded in the state that has held the first presidential primary in every campaign for generations.
The contest is tentatively scheduled for Jan. 22, but that is expected to change as other states maneuver for early voting position in the campaign calendar.
The debate was broadcast on MSNBC, New Hampshire Public Radio and New England Cable News.
President Bush has declared that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination, with the White House also declaring Barak Obama to be “condescending” and “intellectually lazy”.
The pseudo endorsement comes, according to the AP, in a new book by author Bill Sammon entitled Evangelical President set for release Monday.
“She’s got a national presence and this is becoming a national primary,” Bush says “And therefore the person with the national presence, who has got the ability to raise enough money to sustain an effort in a multiplicity of sites, has got a good chance to be nominated.”
Bush stopped sort of saying Hillary would win the election however stating:
“I think our candidate can beat her, but it’s going to be a tough race… I will work to see to it that a Republican wins, and therefore don’t accept the premise that a Democrat will win. I truly think the Republicans will hold the White House.”
The President’s pick of Hillary for nominee is not surprising given that she has supported every major Bush policy with as much if not more zeal.
Clinton voted for the Patriot Act and she voted for the war in Iraq, but so many Democrats are blinded by the cult of personality that they will overwhelmingly vote to put this crime family back in office. While we have made some progress in educating liberals as to the phony staged consensus of the left-right paradigm, the fact remains that a majority still see the White House as some kind of political super bowl, where the success of their ‘team’ is the be all and end all – to the expense of America as a whole.
“I felt that it was appropriate under the circumstances, which really went back to 1998 under the Clinton administration’s conclusion that the regime had to change, that the President (Bush) had authority to pursue that goal,” said Hillary after giving her personal approval for the mess in Iraq.
Clinton is the ultimate elitist and represents the Democrats supposed base, the poor and downtrodden, about as much as Lindsay Lohan represents grace and dignity. She was sure to inform the likes of David Rockefeller and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands as to her presidential aspirations during her visit to last year’s Bilderberg conference in Ottawa Canada. Bilderberg has a proven history of acting in a kingmaker capacity. Both Bill Clinton and Tony Blair attended before becoming President and Prime Minister and the media reported that Bilderberg selected John Edwards as Kerry’s running mate in 2004.
Bush is right to point out that Hillary has the ability to raise the most money, given that Hillary’s presidential financiers include Neo-Con kingpin and Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch, with whom she often meets and parties with along with Roger Ailes and other Republican big wigs. While Bill has been hanging around with the Bushes, Hillary has also been living it up with the likes of Newt Gingrich, Bill Frist, John McCain and Rick Santorum.
Such elite back slapping and shoulder rubbing again highlights that when it comes to getting ahead it pays to be on the same page.
The Anglo-American aristocracy, big businesses and banks have long been pulling the strings behind the curtain in the theatre of politics and underlings such as the Clintons and the Bushes know what they have to do to satisfy their desire for political control.
We have continually exposed how Clinton and the Bushes personally profited from massive drug smuggling operations through Mena, while Clinton was Governor of Arkansas. Alex Jones has interviewed multiple former CIA officers who were unloading the cocaine. Bush Snr, met eleven times with the Clintons in the year before Clinton announced his run for President. Teenagers Don Henry and Kevin Ives were murdered for accidentally witnessing a CIA cocaine smuggling operation in Mena. Bill Clinton aided in the cover up, as well as the money laundering. The Clinton-Bush relationship is a long and fruitful one.
The Clintons and the Bushes have been known to vacation together in more recent times. Last year on CBS, Clinton revealed that he looks upon the Bushes as a surrogate family, and how Barbara Bush refers to him as “her son”. Is this really a picture of two distinct and opposed political ideologies pitted against one another?
In 2005, George W invited both Clintons as guests of honor and praised them to the hilt as he unveiled portraits of the two to be hung in the White House. Bush described him as having “…a great compassion for people in need… a man of enthusiasm and warmth”. This after Bush’s 2000 campaign was built around Clinton having no honor or dignity whilst in the White House.
Hillary returned the compliment a year later declaring that she has a good personal relationship with the Bushes and that she considers the president to have “a lot of charm and charisma”.
Another Clinton in office would mean America being under the thiefdom of either a Bush or a Clinton for a total of at least 32 years, 36 if Hillary is re-elected (many now acknowledge that H.W. Bush pulled the strings as VP during the Reagan era), and they still say anyone can become President! What a pathetic joke!
Forecasters are already predicting a success for the Senator, meaning Americans will probably be living under the same hierarchical oligarchy that brought them rampant illegal immigration, the devaluation of the dollar, the gigantic deficit, 9/11, and hatred of the U.S. around the world. The electorate got bored of drinking Coke so now the establishment is going to provide Pepsi.
Bush and his cadre have set multiple police state precedents that the Democratic opposition has proven it offers no hope of rescinding. Bush spies on Americans with no regard for the Bill of Rights or even the meager statutory restraints imposed on him, and all the Democrats do is whine that they were not in on the snooping, and that next time they want to be informed. Of course, they have an interest in keeping the police state healthy and strong. The idea that Hillary Clinton would be more sensitive to civil liberties if she were at the empire’s helm is too absurd for words.
We need to continue to push for the American public to vote for a real anti-war candidate, Congressman Ron Paul, a man who voted against the illegal invasion of Iraq unlike Hillary Clinton and who also unlike Hillary is firmly opposed to embroiling America in any further foreign entanglements such as Iran and opposes the further strangulation of freedom at home.
Ron Paul is the only candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton and wrestle America free from the ownership of the same gaggle of crooks that have ruthlessly sat on their autocratic power monopoly for the past 30 years.
President Bush is quietly providing back-channel advice to Hillary Rodham Clinton, urging her to modulate her rhetoric so she can effectively prosecute the war in Iraq if elected president.
In an interview for the new book “The Evangelical President,” White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten said Bush has “been urging candidates: ‘Don’t get yourself too locked in where you stand right now. If you end up sitting where I sit, things could change dramatically.’ ”
Bolten said Bush wants enough continuity in his Iraq policy that “even a Democratic president would be in a position to sustain a legitimate presence there.”
“Especially if it’s a Democrat,” the chief of staff told The Examiner in his West Wing office. “He wants to create the conditions where a Democrat not only will have the leeway, but the obligation to see it out.”
To that end, the president has been sending advice, mostly through aides, aimed at preventing an abrupt withdrawal from Iraq in the event of a Democratic victory in November 2008.
“It’s different being a candidate and being the president,” Bush said in an Oval Office interview. “No matter who the president is, no matter what party, when they sit here in the Oval Office and seriously consider the effect of a vacuum being created in the Middle East, particularly one trying to be created by al Qaeda, they will then begin to understand the need to continue to support the young democracy.”
To that end, Bush is institutionalizing controversial anti-terror programs so they can be used by the next president.
“Look, I’d like to make as many hard decisions as I can make, and do a lot of the heavy lifting prior to whoever my successor is,” Bush said. “And then that person is going to have to come and look at the same data I’ve been looking at, and come to their own conclusion.”
As an example, Bush cited his detainee program, which allows him to keep enemy combatants imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay while they await adjudication. Bush is unmoved by endless criticism of the program because he says his successor will need it.
“I specifically talked about it so that a candidate and/or president wouldn’t have to deal with the issue,” he said. “The next person has got the opportunity to analyze the utility of the program and make his or her decision about whether or not it is necessary to protect the homeland. I suspect they’ll find that it is necessary. But my only point to you is that it was important for me to lay it out there, so that the politics wouldn’t enter into whether or not the program ought to survive beyond my period.”
The Examiner asked Bush why Democratic candidates such as Clinton and Barack Obama, who routinely lambaste his handling of Iraq, should take his advice.
“First of all, I expect them to criticize me. That’s one way you get elected in the Democratic primary, is to criticize the president,” Bush replied. “I don’t expect them to necessarily take advice from me. I would expect their insiders to at least get a perspective about how we see things.”
He added: “We have an obligation to make sure that whoever is interested, they get our point of view, because you want somebody running for president to at least understand all perspectives, apart from the politics.”
Besides, Bush suggested that Clinton and Obama just might benefit from his advice.
“If I were a candidate running for president in a complex world that we’re in, I would be asking my national security team to touch base with the White House just to at least listen about plans, thoughts,” he said.
So far, Bush has been encouraged by the fact that Democratic candidates are preserving enough wiggle room in their anti-war rhetoric to enable them to keep at least some troops in Iraq.
“If you listen carefully, there are Democrats that say, ‘Well, there needs to be some kind of presence,'” Bush said.
A senior White House official said the administration did not put much stock in pledges by Democratic presidential candidates to swiftly end the Iraq war if elected.
“Well, first of all, if you’re a presidential candidate,” the official said, “you’re able to [finesse] the public posturing that you may be required to do, or that you fall into doing.
“The other thing is, they are being advised by smart people,” the official said. “We’ve got colleagues here on the staff who have good communications with some of the thinkers on that side.
“And there is a recognition by most of them that there has to be a long-term presence by the United States if we hope to avoid America being brought back into the region in a very precarious way, at a point where all-out resources are required.”
One topic discussed by the White House and Democratic presidential campaigns is whether such a long-term presence should be inside Iraq, as Clinton prefers, or just outside, as Democratic candidate John Edwards has suggested.
Asked by The Examiner whether the Democrats were reluctant to have private contacts with the administration, the White House official replied: “No, I think they sort of welcome conversation.”
Besides, he said, Democrats understand the negative consequences of moving too quickly to reverse Bush’s Iraq policy. The official noted that in the wake of Vietnam, anti-war Democrats “suffered for 20-some-odd years because they were identified as the party, when it came to national security, of being weak.”
“If I were a Democrat, I would not want to be in a place where I was forcing us to withdraw in ’08,” he said. “It’s an election year and any bad consequences would immediately be on their head.
“One of two things will happen if a Democrat gets elected president,” he said. “They will either have to withdraw U.S. troops in order to remain true to the rhetoric — in which case, any consequences in the aftermath fall on their heads. Or they have to break their word, in which case they encourage fratricide on the left of their party. Now that’s a thorny issue to work through.”
Vice President Dick Cheney was philosophical about the possibility of a Democratic president fundamentally reversing the policies that he and Bush have worked so hard to implement in Iraq.
“It’s the nature of the business, in a sense,” he shrugged during an interview in his West Wing office. “I mean, you get two terms. We were fortunate to get two terms. And I think we’ll increasingly see a lot of emphasis on deciding who the next occupant of the Oval Office is going to be.”
NEW YORK (AP) – Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is proposing an international organization to fight terrorism through shared intelligence – cooperation that he says will combat the dangers facing the United States where President Bush has failed.
“We need a counterterrorism policy that will actually counter terrorism,” Edwards said in remarks prepared for delivery at Pace University. “We’ve got to throw away the failed George Bush policies of the past, and move in a bold new direction.”
The 2004 vice presidential nominee was delivering his speech four days before the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, not far from Ground Zero. The speech also comes in chief primary rival Hillary Rodham Clinton’s home district, and he made a point of challenging he notion that post-9/11 reforms have made the nation safer.
“Today, terrorism is worse in Iraq, and it’s worse around the world,” Edwards said in excerpts provided by his campaign. “It means the results are in on George Bush’s so-called global war on terror and it’s not just a failure, it’s a double-edged failure.”
Edwards said the centerpiece of his terrorism policy will be a new multilateral organization called the Counterterrorism and Intelligence Treaty Organization. He said it will be designed to coordinate operations like the recent arrest of three suspected terrorists in Germany who were suspected of plans to bomb airports and other institutions in the country.
“Those nations who join will, by working together, show the world the power of cooperation,” Edwards said. “Those nations who join will also be required to commit to tough criteria about the steps they will take to root out extremists, particularly those who cross borders. Those nations who refuse to join will be called out before the world.”
Edwards accused Bush of focusing on Cold War institutions designed to win traditional wars instead of cooperation with allies to take out small hostile groups. He also accused him of “an exclusively short-term focus on the enemy we know” and “a foreign policy of convenience that readily does business with whoever is available and regularly turns a blind eye when our allies behave wrongly or fail to cooperate.”
“Most of all, instead of reckless, solo pursuit of an ideological agenda that abandons our moral authority and disregards our allies, we need to re-engage with the world and reassert our moral leadership,” Edwards said.
VIENNA (Reuters) – China says its one-child policy has helped the fight against global warming by avoiding 300 million births, the equivalent of the population of the United States.
But delegates at U.N. climate change talks in Vienna said on Thursday birth control is unlikely to find favor as a major policy theme, partly because of opposition by the Catholic Church and some developing nations trying to increase their population.
Some scientists say that birth control measures far less draconian than China’s are wrongly overlooked in the fight against climate change, when the world population is projected to soar to about 9 billion by 2050 from 6.6 billion now.
“Population is clearly an important factor,” said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, at U.N. talks trying to plan a new deal to combat climate change after 2012.
China, which rejects criticism that it is doing too little to confront climate change, says that its population is now 1.3 billion against 1.6 billion if it had not imposed tough birth control measures in the late 1970s.
The number of births avoided equals the entire population of the United States. Beijing says that fewer people means less demand for energy and lower emissions of heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels.
“This is only an illustration of the actions we have taken,” said Su Wei, a senior Foreign Ministry official heading China’s delegation to the 158-nation talks from Aug 27-31.
He told Reuters that Beijing was not arguing that its policy was a model for others to follow in a global drive to avert ever more chaotic weather patterns, droughts, floods, erosion and rising ocean levels.
But avoiding 300 million births “means we averted 1.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2005” based on average world per capital emissions of 4.2 tonnes, he said.
GERMANY
A country emitting 1.3 billion tonnes a year would rank just ahead of Germany on a global list of emitters behind only the United States, China, Russia, India and Japan.
Beijing introduced its one-child policy in the late 1970s. The rules vary across the country but usually limit families to one or, at most two, children.
“Population has not been taken seriously enough in the climate debate,” said Chris Rapley, incoming head of the Science Museum in London.
He favors a greater drive for education about family planning to avoid unwanted births and slow population growth.
But tougher birth control runs into opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, and from some developing nations which favor rising birth rates and have per capita emissions a fraction of those in rich nations.
Harlan Watson, the chief U.S. negotiator, said that high immigration to the United States makes it harder to slow its rising emissions.
“It’s simple arithmetic,” he said. “If you look at mid-century, Europe will be at 1990 levels of population while ours will be nearing 60 percent above 1990 levels. So population does matter,” he said.
Sen. John Edwards Refuses To Answer Whether Or Not 9/11 Was Carried Out By Forces Within The U.S.
When asked by Barbara Walters on the night of September 11, 2001 if the 9/11 attacks were carried out by forces within the U.S., 2008 presidential candidate and then senate intelligence committee member John Edwards becomes evasive and refuses to answer the question, after having spoken to CIA director George Tenet earlier that day.