Hostage Standoff: Pirates Repel Sailors Attempting To Reach Captain Phillips

Pirates off the eastern coast of Africa fired on U.S. sailors Saturday as they tried to reach the lifeboat where an American captain is being held, a U.S. official familiar with the situation told CNN.

The gunfire forced the sailors, who did not return fire, to turn back, the official said. ....

Obama Nomination Papers Are Perjurious!

(Compiler's note: A must read article.)

Tell All 50 State Attorneys General To Investigate NOW The Compelling Evidence That Barack Obama Was Born In Africa!

Dear Concerned Friend,

I dared bring Barack Obama into court to force him to produce his birth certificate and put an end to the controversy over his status as a "natural born" citizenship once and for all. And now he's coming after me and the United States Justice Foundation (USJF) -- the public-interest legal group that I founded over 30 years ago -- with a vengeance! Merely because we dare to seek the truth!

And they must have something to hide, because Mr. Obama's attorneys have threatened to spend, and then sanction, USJF out of existence.

USJF has started efforts to convince State Attorneys General, all across the country, to investigate whether Barack Obama has committed perjury by knowingly filing false nomination papers ... claiming to be constitutionally eligible to run for, and serve as, President of the United States. As you know, the available evidence shows that he was born in Africa. A FAX to all 50 State Attorneys General is available for you to send right now.

You see, even though it's past January 20, 2009 -- inauguration day -- Barack Obama can still be stopped from becoming an illegal "squatter" in the White House.

FAX All 50 State Attorneys General To Investigate Obama's Fraud

Frankly, the evidence that Barack Hussein Obama was born in Africa -- not Hawaii as he claims - and, therefore, cannot serve as the President of the United States, is compelling.

• First, Mr. Obama's refusal to release his birth certificate. If he has nothing to hide, what does he gain by refusing to allow the press to see the birth certificate?
• Second, the contention by Barack Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, that Mr. Obama was born in a particular Hawaiian hospital, only to claim that it was in a different hospital several years later.
• Third, the erecting of a wall around Barack Obama's grandmother, the late Madelyn Dunham, by Mr. Obama, thus cutting off access to the one person then alive who would have been present if he was actually born in Hawaii.
• Fourth, the posting of law enforcement personnel at the two hospitals in Honolulu mentioned by Ms. Soetoro-Ng in an effort to block the press from discovering the truth about the birth certificate.
• Fifth, a taped phone conversation with Mr. Obama's step-grandmother in Kenya, who claims that she was present at his birth ... in what is now called Kenya!
• Sixth, the "birth certificate" posted on the Obama campaign website and other liberal websites. Since Barack Obama was born in 1961, long before laser printers and office computers, his original birth certificate would be typewritten ... unlike the laser printed "copy" purported to be genuine.

The evidence demands that Barack Obama answer why he has been hiding the truth from the American people about his eligibility to run for, and serve as, President!

That's right. Not only does Mr. Obama continue to categorically refuse to produce the decisive evidence proving whether he is a "natural born" citizen, his high-priced LA-based "dream team" of attorneys has USJF squarely in its crosshairs! And they're loading both barrels!

So, unless you help me and my team here at USJF to stand our ground in court, Mr. Obama's hired guns could blow a financial hole in USJF's ability to be the proverbial thorn in Mr. Obama's side!

Barack Obama continues to battle any attempt to see his real birth certificate - producing only a phony one posted on his website -- as well as fighting us tooth and nail as we seek access to his college records... records which we believe may prove that he was foreign born!

USJF served a subpoena upon Occidental College to gain access to Mr. Obama's college records and we are fighting to get at the truth on many other fronts, as well, including:

1. Appealing a case filed by USJF in California, all the way up to the United States Supreme Court, if necessary, on behalf of 2008 Presidential candidate Alan Keyes, calling into question Mr. Obama's status as a "natural born" citizen;
2. Funding, and assisting local attorneys and Plaintiffs, in similar lawsuits, in Ohio, Hawaii, and Mississippi, AND we're considering filing more lawsuits in other states; and
3. We have initiated a campaign demanding that your State Attorney General take action now, which I'll tell you about momentarily...

Click Here Donate & Demand Mr. Obama Show Us the Truth!

You see, when Barack Obama officially entered the office of President, he became, in essence, a "pretender to the throne." According to the Constitution, only a "natural born citizen" can occupy the presidency.

Even though he was sworn in on January 20, 2009, Barack Obama is not legally the President of the United States, unless he can prove that he is a "natural born citizen."

What's more, every action taken by him while he occupies the White House may be invalid. If he cannot legally be President, every law passed by Congress will be null and void because the Constitution clearly requires that all laws be signed by the President ... and, without a legally elected and sworn in President in office, that becomes an impossibility.

Quite frankly, this crisis must be ended! And it must be ended now!

And that's just what we're fighting to do. The United States Justice Foundation is spearheading a campaign to protect the United States Constitution ... and your liberty.

Click Here Donate & Demand Mr. Obama Show Us the Truth!

We have to press our case to stop Barack Obama from, apparently, illegally holding the Presidency, despite the ongoing threats against us. We are speaking of filing additional lawsuits and administrative actions, over and above the dozens already filed, if you will help us today.

I need your help right now in order to win this battle. We must raise the needed funds to continue our legal research, pay court costs and lawyer fees, and to contact all 50 State Attorneys General. Helping USJF with this campaign is your best shot, and, possibly your only chance, at finding out whether Barack Obama is legally holding the Presidency of our great nation, or whether he is a fraud, a usurper!

My friend, please take action immediately. Please FAX all 50 State Attorneys General and please send to me your best possible gift to help USJF stop Barack Obama from continuing his apparent theft of the Presidency!

FAX All 50 State Attorneys General To Investigate Obama's Fraud

Are you willing to see the Constitution shredded by the Left? Will you sit back and do nothing while a foreign-born person may be illegally occupying the White House as President of the United States?

We will not be intimidated. But we MUST have your help immediately if USJF is to survive this fight to the finish -- and if the U.S. Constitution is to weather this crisis intact!

Our country is on the fast track to disaster ... but you can help us keep the situation from getting worse. I pray that I'll hear from you today.


In His Name,

Gary Kreep, Executive Director
United States Justice Foundation


P.S. America has never before faced such a threat. Everything we hold dear is at risk with Barack Obama sitting as President without him releasing his actual birth certificate. Please, send in your best possible gift today!

P.P.S. And don't forget to check out our website for more information about this case and other critical issues affecting our nation.

Click Here Donate & Demand Mr. Obama Show Us the Truth!

Or Send Checks to:
United States Justice Foundation
Dept Code 2259
P.O. Box 131637
Houston, TX 77219-1637

Beck: 'Destined to Repeat ...'

Eleven minutes discussion on Liberal Fascism with four authors.

Analysis: Pirates put Obama in 21st-century bind

By ANNE GEARAN

WASHINGTON – A ragtag band of pirates has put President Barack Obama in a bind: He commands overwhelming firepower in the form of a growing flotilla of U.S. warships, but he doesn't want to use it.

Thursday's decision to turn to FBI hostage negotiators showed Obama reaching for all of his limited options in the high-seas hostage drama. Negotiators in the United States were communicating with the pirates through a Navy destroyer that shadowed the small lifeboat where four pirates held American cargo ship captain Richard Phillips.

The president wasn't saying a word about the situation in public, though he dispatched aides to reassure the nation that their government was pressing to free Phillips. ....

Obama Votes 'Present' on Pirate Crisis

Hillary: Piracy Is Funny

Obama Team Mulls Aims Of Somali Extremists

Senior Obama administration officials are debating how to address a potential terrorist threat to U.S. interests from a Somali extremist group, with some in the military advocating strikes against its training camps. But many officials maintain that uncertainty about the intentions of the al-Shabab organization dictates a more patient, nonmilitary approach. .... pirates

Pirates do it again: Ten Italians on tugboat reported hijacked - NATO

A U.S.-owned, Italian-flagged tugboat reported hijacked in the Gulf of Aden has 10 Italian citizens among its 16-member crew, according to NATO alliance officials on a warship in the region.

Al-Qaeda terror plot to bomb Easter shoppers

An al-Qaeda cell was days away from carrying out an "Easter spectacular" of co-ordinated suicide bomb attacks on shopping centres in Manchester, police believe. ....

The Navy vs. The Pirates: How the mighty have fallen

by Michael Savage

For the first time in 200 years, a U.S. merchant vessel has been taken by pirates. Now the brave American crew of this merchant vessel, the Maersk Alabama, was able to overpower the pirates and retake the ship. But in the process, the pirates escaped with the captain of the ship, Richard Phillips.

There are many questions which this incident raises. First of all, why was the crew on board this vessel not armed so they could prevent this sort of hijacking? I heard a reporter say that the ships were given water cannons to defend themselves from pirates. That’s wonderful. Maybe our merchant fleet and the U.S. Navy can start arming themselves with water cannons and water balloons in order to gently discourage our enemies from attacking us. And on top of that, some idiot ship owner whose boat was taken over last year got on Fixed News and said that these crews shouldn’t be armed. With idiots like this in positions of power, it’s no wonder that these pirates sense weakness and prey on our vessels.

A second key question here is, what are the U.S. government and the Navy doing to stop the situation? Well at this point, the Navy has sent the destroyer U.S.S. Bainbridge to “track” the boat that the pirates are holding the captain on. What has happened to what was once the most powerful navy in the world? During his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt, who talked softly but carried a big stick, sent the “Great White Fleet” of the United States on a tour around the world. He displayed American power openly so that pirates and petty dictators would fear to attack us. And now we just “track” our enemies instead of attack our enemies.

It seems that our Navy has become nothing more than an extended form of welfare so that certain groups in our country can have better access to healthcare. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

I told you months ago on The Savage Nation that the U.S. Navy was created in the early 1800’s to combat the Barbary pirates that were attacking our merchant ships from North Africa. These were Muslim pirates, just as the pirates who are attacking our vessels from Somalia are Muslim pirates. And it seems now that months after I told you these facts, the rest of the media has caught up because now I am hearing the same lines spouted by the hemorrhoid with ears on Fixed News.

But the main point is that Thomas Jefferson created our Navy to confront exactly this kind of situation. And now we seem unable to deal with basic problems that we though we had solved 200 years ago. Back then we had real statesmen who were willing to take real action. Today we have Hillary Clinton. She’s not angrily demanding the release of the captain and threatening to use the full force of the U.S. military to wipe them off the face of the earth. Instead she’s saying that we are going to partner up with other countries in order to stop the problem. We’ve gone from powering up to partnering up in one generation.

And now we hear that the FBI is assisting the U.S. Navy in securing the release of the captain from the pirates. This is not a law enforcement issue, this is a military issue. We don’t want police action, we want combat action. We need to retaliate against these Muslim pirates with full military force to let them know that they cannot do this. But instead it seems that we have an administration in place that would rather walk the plank instead of pulling rank. Let’s have some pirate music.

Critics say US should attack Somali pirates' land bases

Is it time to replace bluewater policing with tactics of Jefferson, who defeated the Barbary pirates on land?

By Arthur Bright

As the US Navy moves additional ships to the Indian Ocean to attempt to free the American captain held hostage by pirates, some are criticizing Washington's tactics and calling for strikes on the Somali pirates' land bases.

The Daily Telegraph reports that the US is sending additional naval vessels to join the USS Bainbridge, which has been in a standoff with the pirates who took an American captain hostage Wednesday. But experts say that an increased US naval presence will not solve the ongoing issue of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the western Indian Ocean, writes The Wall Street Journal.

"I actually think this naval response is not the right thing to be doing at all," said [Peter Chalk, an expert on piracy at the Rand Corp.,] of the presence of the USS Bainbridge, a guided missile destroyer which reached the Maersk Alabama early Thursday morning. "We have ratcheted up the situation."...

"Governments like the US have little choice, given the public pressure and the political pressure," Mr. Chalk said. "I don't think that the naval presence out there has anything to do with the protection of ships. It's been politicized."

Rather, argues Mr. Chalk, the US needs to target the pirates' bases in Somalia, where they have had free reign to establish camps in various port cities of the failed state. In a commentary for CNN, Tom Wilkerson of the United States Naval Institute, a nonprofit professional association, also advocates targeting the pirates' home bases, which he says is a lesson "we seem unable to learn from our own history."

In 1804 President Thomas Jefferson said "Enough" to paying 20 percent of the US national budget as tribute to Barbary pirates. His response was clear and successful – build a strong naval task force, equip it with a sizeable contingent of Marines, and send it to attack and defeat the pirates in their lair. The sailors and Marines sent on that mission did just that – and in the process wrote a stirring page in our nation's early history.

The problem today is that we have refused to take the Jefferson model. We've confined our anti-piracy efforts to the open seas and left the pirates' home bases on land as a sanctuary. Thus, the pirates continue to operate with relative freedom and stealth. We and our allies only respond, never seizing the initiative.

The Jefferson model is a better answer: Take on the pirates where they are, rather than guessing where they will be. In short, attack them at their home bases.

Roger Middleton, an expert on piracy for Chatham House, notes in The Independent that increased naval presence in the Gulf of Aden since last year has reduced the number of attacks there. However, he notes that "the navies have fallen victim to their own success."

The effectiveness of the patrols in the Gulf of Aden seem[s] to have caused the pirates to refocus their attentions on the western Indian ocean. ...

Now hijackers are threatening an area of up to two million square miles, they are much harder to locate. European, US, and other navies are still overwhelmingly concentrated off Somalia's northern shore, hours or even days journey away from the recent attacks.

Although the pickings may be slimmer and the sea more dangerous in the ocean the pirates have found an easier place to work and the western Indian Ocean may soon be as notorious as the Gulf of Aden.

While national governments decide how to resolve the Somali pirate problem, sailors are left to consider their own measures to protect their vessels. The Christian Science Monitor reports that some US maritime academies are considering adding weapons and defensive training to their curriculums. The Monitor adds that shipping companies are also reviewing new ship defenses.

In November 2005, a cruise liner, the Seabourn Spirit, used a sonic blast from a "long-range acoustic device," or LRAD, to repel pirates who were trying to board.

Shocks from an "electric fence" have also been tried, along with night-vision systems to prevent pirates from being able to get close to the vessels. Indeed, outrunning pirates is still one of the best approaches. Although pirate boats are faster, a large ship moving at 16 knots or more creates an enormous wake that makes it hard to board. Razor wire ringing the ship is another technique.

The extra security isn't cheap. Sonic deterrent equipment and operators can cost $20,000 to $30,000 per trip, according to documents on the US Maritime Administration website.

Radio Netherlands notes that some companies are considering posting security personnel to their vessels. But they add that Pottengal Mukundan, director of the piracy watchdog International Maritime Bureau, believes that such an approach could make matters worse.

"We feel that arming merchant vessels is not really the answer. Given the current legal framework in which merchant shipping operates, we may be creating more problems than trying to solve them."

There are several reasons why arming merchant vessels may not be the best option. First, the presence of armed security agents would not guarantee that fewer ships would be hijacked. Second, the pirates have rarely harmed captives and arming these ships could increase the likelihood of injuries and deaths. Furthermore, if only some ships are armed and others are not, then the armed ships may remain safe while exposing the unarmed ships to increased violence.

To The Shores Of Tripoli

Muslim foes. Kidnappings. How the Barbary Wars foreshadowed things to come.

Within days of his March 1801 inauguration as the third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson ordered a naval and military expedition to North Africa, without the authorization of Congress, to put down regimes involved in slavery and piracy. The war was the first in which the U.S. flag was carried and planted overseas; it saw the baptism by fire of the U.S. Marine Corps-whose anthem boasts of action on "the shores of Tripoli"-and it prefigured later struggles with both terrorism and jihad. ....

Obama's European Tour: Arrogance, Ineptness & an Abdication of Leadership

by Frank Salvato

While the European and Middle Eastern leaders smiled and patted Mr. Obama on the back, they gave him nothing. How can this be explained? ....

Video exposes 'all whites are racist' teachings

(Compiler's note: A must read and must see.)

From WorldNetDaily

Critics say they've never found a more systematic assault on liberty

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which fights for the speech rights of students on America's college campuses, has released a video documenting a "thought control" policy at the University of Delaware.

WND reported on the issue when the university's office of residential life was caught requiring students to participant in a program that taught "all whites are racist."

School officials immediately defended the teaching, but in the face of a backlash from alumni and publicity about its work, the school decided to drop the curriculum, although some factions later suggested its revival.

The documentary by FIRE, called "Think What We Think … Or Else: Thought Control on the American Campus," explains the "though-reform program."

It is available on The FIRE's website and also has been embedded here:

FIRE reports it was in the fall of 2007 when the "Orwellian program of ideological re-education aimed at coercing students to change their thoughts, habits, and values to conform to a highly specific ideological agenda" was established.

More than 7,000 undergraduates in the Delaware dorms were required to attend training sessions, floor meetings and one-on-one sessions with resident assistants who followed the rules described in internal documents as a "treatment."

"'Think What We Think... Or Else' serves as a reminder to college and university administrators that programs like that established at the University of Delaware are flagrant violations of students' right to freedom of conscience – and that colleges with programs that emulate UD's failed effort just might end up as the subject of FIRE's next documentary," the organization said.

Foundation officials said they never had encountered a more systematic assault upon the individual liberty, dignity, privacy and autonomy of university students."

.... The mandatory "reprogramming sessions" even had the trappings of a cult, it said.

Among the teachings from the Office of Residence Life Diversity Education Training documents was:

"A RACIST: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. 'The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities, or acts of discrimination. ...'"

The education program also asserted that "reverse racism" is "a term created and used by white people to deny their white privilege." And "a non-racist" is called "a non-term," because, the program explains, "The term was created by whites to deny responsibility for systemic racism, to maintain an aura of innocence in the face of racial oppression, and to shift the responsibility for that oppression from whites to people of color (called 'blaming the victim')."

Obama officials working against Netanyahu?

Rallying Congress for fear Israeli PM will bypass White House ....

Geithner, Paulson named in $200 billion lawsuit

AIG-related case claims they violated shareholders constitutional rights ....

Kentucky elections officer wants eligibility investigated

An official in the office of Kentucky's elections chief has referred to state Attorney General Jack Conway for investigation the issue of Barack Obama's eligibility to be president.....

Pirates defy U.S. navy off Somalia, French free yacht

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Pirates on Friday sailed a hijacked German freighter and its crew toward a lifeboat off Somalia where an American hostage was being held in an attempt to help their comrades in a standoff with the U.S. Navy. ....

US ships block help for pirates holding US captain

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - U.S. warships are trying to stop Somali pirates from sending reinforcements to a lifeboat where an American captain is being held hostage as the high-seas standoff off Africa's eastern coast entered a fourth day Saturday. ....

Pakistan President pressured to sign Sharia deal

Pressure is mounting on Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari to sign the peace deal implementing Islamic law in North West Frontier Province's Malakand region, which encompasses the troubled Swat valley. ....

Treasury Won't Say If It Has Refused to Allow Banks to Give Back 'Bailout' Money

The Treasury Department won't reveal the names of financial firms that are seeking to return the funds they received late last year and this year under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)--funds the firms no longer want and would like to give back to the Treasury in return for the federal government surrendering the ownership interests it took in the firms. ....

More Warships Head to Scene of Hostage American Sea Captain

Pirates pose annoying distraction for Obama

WASHINGTON, April 9 (Reuters) - Ragtag teams of modern-day Blackbeards are posing an annoying distraction for Barack Obama, forcing him to add Somalia to an already long list of foreign policy challenges. ....

Pirates recapture US hostage after escape attempt

Illinois: Islam "insulted" by alleged child killer's mug shot, says husband

Alert: ACORN Obama Surrogates Trying to Steal Elections

Source: A friend

Remember ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), the organization under federal investigation for allegedly registering untold numbers of fraudulent voters during last year's election?

Well, FOX News recently reported that ACORN "signed on as a national partner with the U.S. Census Bureau in February 2009 to assist with the recruitment of the 1.4 million temporary workers needed to go door-to-door to count every person in the United States."

You read that right... ACORN will be receiving your tax dollars to knock on doors all over the country and "pretend" to count Americans the way they allegedly pretended to register voters.

What more needs to be said?

Congress should be investigating ACORN, not giving ACORN your tax dollars to make a mockery of our government!

A few short months ago, when ACORN stood accused of registering untold numbers of bogus voters for the election, House Minority Leader John Boehner talked of cutting off federal funding for ACORN:

"Election cycle after election cycle, this organization has been at the forefront of breaking the law in order to promote their left-wing agenda. All the while, they have been the recipients of millions of dollars of federal funding through various federal programs and third-party groups."

"ACORN spent decades promoting the housing policies that brought America's economy to the brink, and similarly over the years has committed fraud on our system of elections, making American voters question the fairness and accuracy of the exercise of their most fundamental right under the Constitution."

Barack Obama, on the other hand, has a different opinion when it comes to ACORN. Last December he told a cheering mob of extremist groups, including ACORN:

"We're going to be calling all of you in to help us run the agenda. We're going to be having meetings all over the country."

And now your tax dollars are being sent directly to ACORN for the census as Obama appears to be making good on that promise?

We can't let ACORN get away with it.

Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent and personalized Blast Faxes to Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY REPUBLICAN MEMBER of the Leadership of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives.

Tell them that organizations being investigated for voter fraud - like ACORN - should not be allowed anywhere near our tax dollars or the United States Census. This is nothing more than a brazen move to subvert America and permanently entrench the extreme left. Demand that they propose legislation to stop ACORN dead in its tracks.

http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/acorncensusbe.html

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What's the Big Deal?

Other than the fact that our tax dollars should NOT be going to an organization accused of such widespread fraud, the 2010 census will determine how many Members of Congress each state gets.

The Census also determines the how many Electoral Votes each state will receive in the next presidential organization.

That means, when it comes to the potential for committing wide-scale fraud, ACORN is moving on up and the opportunity for manipulation is HUGE.

Massive voter fraud? That's bush-league. Why stop at voter fraud when you can permanently - albeit fraudulently - entrench the extreme left into power for generations to come?

But that's not all. The census also provides the data that Congress uses to allocate government spending -- highways, schools, airports, police support, you name it.

That means, if the process is compromised, some states -- and the politicians who believe that their job is to "bring home the bacon" -- will be rewarded handsomely.

States that "vote right" could be swilling pork. States that "vote wrong" won't be allowed near the trough.

Will ACORN -- which has been perennially accused of voter fraud, embezzlement and other illegal activities -- engage in every form of deceit and treachery to cook the figures and give the extreme left greater traction in the 2012 election?

They shouldn't be given the opportunity. Not with your tax dollars! Not if we have anything to say about it!

Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent and personalized Blast Faxes to Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY REPUBLICAN MEMBER of the Leadership of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives.

Tell them that organizations being investigated for voter fraud - like ACORN - should not be allowed anywhere near our tax dollars or the United States Census. This is nothing more than a brazen move to subvert America and permanently entrench the extreme left. Demand that they propose legislation to stop ACORN dead in its tracks.

http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/acorncensusbe.html

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ACORN Has a Long and Dubious History.

Powerline.com once commented: "It is reasonable to ask whether ACORN is in fact a criminal conspiracy to subvert the voting rights of Americans."

Michael Gaynor with Canada Free Press recounts:

"ACORN's history is riddled with criminal activity. During the last major election [2006], the Wall Street Journal did a story about ACORN. Four ACORN workers had been indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms to the Kansas City, Missouri, election board; other ACORN workers were convicted in Wisconsin and Colorado and investigations, at the time the article was written, were under way in Ohio, Tennessee and Pennsylvania."

Gaynor also writes of more recent indictments and investigations:

"Last year, The Seattle Times reported the biggest voter-registration fraud scheme in Washington history. Three ACORN employees pleaded guilty, and four more were charged for filling out and submitting more than 1,800 fictitious voter-registration cards during a 2006 registration drive in King and Pierce counties.' (Keith Ervin, 'Three plead guilty in fake voter scheme,' 10-30-2007)"

"This year, an ACORN employee in West Reading, PA, was sentenced for up to 23 months in prison for identity theft and tampering with records. A second ACORN worker pleaded not guilty to the same charges and is free on $10,000 bail.

"There are also examples of indictments this year, such as the four ACORN employees in Kansas City charged with identity theft and filing false registrations during the 2006 election and the Reynoldsburg fellow indicted on two felony counts of illegal voting and false registration, after being registered by ACORN to vote in two separate counties. And there are current investigations into ACORN for voter fraud all over the map... ."

But that's not all. The allegations of fraud are staggering.

The Associated Press reported that the Milwaukee ACORN office hired at least seven felons who were convicted of crimes ranging from drug possession to robbery.

According to the Washington Post: "Nevada Secretary of State and Attorney General who alleged in an application for a search warrant that ACORN had hired 59 felons through a work release program as canvassers..."

ACORN's Wisconsin political director Carolyn Castore rather matter-of-factly told the Associated Press: "We have a lot of folks with felony records and, frankly, they need jobs."

And your tax dollars ARE STILL going to ACORN. You're actually paying them despite their long history of undermining your government just as surely as if you wrote the check yourself!

Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent and personalized Blast Faxes to Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY REPUBLICAN MEMBER of the Leadership of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives.

Tell them that organizations being investigated for voter fraud - like ACORN - should not be allowed anywhere near our tax dollars or the United States Census. This is nothing more than a brazen move to subvert America and permanently entrench the extreme left. Demand that they propose legislation to stop ACORN dead in its tracks.

http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/acorncensusbe.html

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More Accusations Of Fraud... .

CNN's Drew Griffin filed the following report from Lake County, Indiana:

"ACORN's in trouble all across the country with it's a huge voter-registration drive. Actually, 1.3 million new voters registered according to ACORN. The problem is, are they really voters? Up in Lake County, Indiana, they're finding out they are not. Some 5,000 applications came in, all filled out by ACORN, and there they are. They went through the first 2,100 of them, every single one of them, fraudulent."

On October 13, FOX News interviewed two newly registered young men in Ohio. One said he'd registered with ACORN 15 times! Another said he registered 73 times! Both said the ACORN representatives pleaded: "If you don't sign I'll lose my job."

The New York Post reported:

"Last July, ACORN settled the largest case of voter fraud in Washington state history. Seven ACORN workers had submitted nearly 2,000 bogus voter forms. According to case records, they flipped through phone books for names to use on the forms, including 'Leon Spinks,' 'Frekkie Magoal' and 'Fruto Boy Crispila.' Three ACORN election hoaxers pleaded guilty in October. A King County prosecutor called ACORN's criminal sabotage 'an act of vandalism upon the voter rolls.'"

And The Wall Street Journal reported:

"In Ohio in 2004, a worker for one affiliate was given crack cocaine in exchange for fraudulent registrations that included underage voters, dead voters and pillars of the community named Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy, and Jive Turkey. During a congressional hearing in Ohio in the aftermath of the 2004 election, officials from several counties in the state explained ACORN's practice of dumping thousands of registration forms in their lap on the submission deadline, even though the forms had been collected months earlier."

The sheer number of accusations are overwhelming. ACORN must be stopped.

Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent and personalized Blast Faxes to Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY REPUBLICAN MEMBER of the Leadership of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives.

Tell them that organizations being investigated for voter fraud - like ACORN - should not be allowed anywhere near our tax dollars or the United States Census. This is nothing more than a brazen move to subvert America and permanently entrench the extreme left. Demand that they propose legislation to stop ACORN dead in its tracks.

http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/acorncensusbe.html

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The Largest Radical Group in America... .

Testifying before the House Administration and House Judiciary Committee, James Terry, Chief Public Advocate, Consumers Rights League, said:

"Here are the most important questions right now: We know about the thousands of potentially fraudulent voter registration cards turned in by ACORN and caught by officials. But given the size of ACORN's efforts and the fact that the abuses appear to be systemic, we believe it is fair to question how many more fraudulent registrations have not been discovered , Furthermore, as this mega organization with a decades long history of violating the law is turned to get out the vote efforts, we believe it is fair to question how many fraudulent registrations may lead to fraudulent votes or what other activities they are willing to undertake to influence the election."

Stanley Kurtz of National Review called ACORN "the largest radical group in America."

He describes ACORN's tactics as violent and in-your-face:

"On July 31, 1997, six people were arrested as 200 Acorn protesters tried to storm the Chicago City Council session. According to the Chicago Daily Herald, Acorn demonstrators pushed over the metal detector and table used to screen visitors, backed police against the doors to the council chamber, and blocked late-arriving aldermen and city staff from entering the session."

"Acorn protestors in Baltimore disrupted a bankers' dinner and sent four busloads of profanity-screaming protestors against the mayor's home, terrifying his wife and kids."

Kurtz also tells us about ACORN's role in bringing about our current economic woes:

"How did we get into this financial mess in the first place? Well, to a large degree, it's because lenders gave mortgages to borrowers who were unqualified, who shouldn't have been given loans in the first place. Why did they do that.... Obama at the time had his hands on the purse strings of two organizations. He was a director of the Woods Fund, and he was Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC). He gave money from both organizations to ACORN, and also provided training for ACORN workers. ACORN succeeded in drawing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the very policies that led to the current disaster. ACORN put pressure on banks by threatening them with accusations of racism if they didn't give loans to minorities, even if they were completely unqualified."

Kurtz said of Madeleine Talbot, head of ACORN in Chicago:

"[She] boasted of 'dragging banks kicking and screaming' into dubious loans."

The election of Barack Obama and the recession we now endure are Siamese twins -- joined together by ACORN.

Do we want this poisonous gang of left-wing ideologues to continue destroying our country by perverting the census? Only by banding together and acting quickly can we prevent ACORN from doing more harm to America than they already have!

Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent and personalized Blast Faxes to Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY REPUBLICAN MEMBER of the Leadership of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives.

Tell them that organizations being investigated for voter fraud - like ACORN - should not be allowed anywhere near our tax dollars or the United States Census. This is nothing more than a brazen move to subvert America and permanently entrench the extreme left. Demand that they propose legislation to stop ACORN dead in its tracks.

http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/acorncensusbe.html

AOL Members May Use This Hyperlink

If the hyperlink above does not appear to function, please copy and paste http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/acorncensusbe.html into the address bar of your browser.

Yours In Freedom,




Jeffrey Mazzella

Center for Individual Freedom
917-B King Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
703-535-5836
Fax:703-535-5838

Marine acquitted of murder in Iraq slaying

By ELLIOT SPAGAT

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. – A military jury on Thursday acquitted a Marine sergeant on charges of murdering an unarmed detainee during battle in Fallujah, Iraq. The jury also acquitted Sgt. Ryan Weemer of dereliction of duty in the November 2004 death.

The panel of eight Marines who served in Iraq or Afghanistan got the case Wednesday and deliberated more than four hours.

Weemer, of Hindsboro, Ill., could have faced a maximum sentence of life in prison and dishonorable discharge if convicted of murder. The maximum sentence for dereliction is six months in prison and a bad conduct discharge.

In closing arguments Wednesday, a defense attorney said the 26-year-old Weemer acted in self-defense.

The prosecutor, Capt. Nicholas Gannon, recounted that Weemer said in recorded interviews that he shot the man and told a squadmate that he would have to live with that for the rest of his life.

Weemer also said in interviews that he and other Marines shot a total of four men in a house after their squad suffered its first fatality.

"I can't bring you an autopsy report," Gannon said. "I don't have one, but we have a lot of evidence that shows you beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused shot an individual in the chest twice.... The killing was unlawful."

The prosecutor told jurors they should convict Weemer of lesser charges of voluntary manslaughter or assault if they acquit him of murder.

During the one-week court-martial, the defense argued that the government could not prove Weemer killed the unarmed captive because there are no bodies, no relatives complaining of a lost loved one and no forensic evidence.

Weemer's civilian attorney, Paul Hackett, said in his closing argument that Weemer fired while he and other Marines were trying to seize a house from insurgents. He recounted testimony and statements of Weemer's squadmates that portrayed a confusing scene.

"This was chaos!" he said. "(The detainees) were not cooperating. If they're not cooperating, they're not under control. If they're not under control, they pose a threat to these Marines."

Hackett told jurors to be skeptical of a 2006 recorded interview that Weemer gave to Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents in which he describes shooting the detainee. He said one agent was an experienced interrogator who knew how to wear Weemer down.

"It is a very, very, very complicated, confusing interview," Hackett said.

Weemer told two NCIS agents that he was covered with the blood of his best friend, who had been killed by a sniper, just before his squad leader ordered him to kill the prisoner, according to a tape recording played at the court martial.

"I grabbed a gun and took him to the back of the house," Weemer, 26, said on the tape. "I shot him twice in the chest."

Weemer said he argued with his squad leader, former Sgt. Jose Luis Nazario, before complying with the order to kill the man, who was taken prisoner when Marines stormed a house on the first day of the assault on Fallujah.

"I definitely wasn't the type to disobey an order," he said.

Last August, Nazario was acquitted in Riverside federal court of killing two prisoners and ordering Weemer and another Marine to each kill one.

Another sergeant, Jermaine Nelson, has pleaded not guilty to unpremeditated murder and dereliction of duty, but his court-martial has been indefinitely postponed because of a flurry of last-minute motions filed by his attorney.

Obama's G20 plan kisses off Declaration of Independence

(Compiler's note: Another must read -- wake up America)

by Jerome Corsi

At the G20 meeting in London, President Obama agreed to create of an international board with authority to intervene in U.S. corporations by dictating executive compensation and approving or disapproving business management decisions, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.

Political consultant Dick Morris said that by agreeing to create the Financial Stability Board, Obama is a "willing accomplice" to a decision that effectively repealed the U.S. Declaration of Independence and abrogated the sovereignty of the United States.

The final communiqués coming out of the G20 meeting in London April 2 included a document entitled "Declaration on Strengthening the Financial System."

"By agreeing to the stipulations in this document, President Obama gave the blessing of the United States to the G20 decision to elevate the Financial Stability Forum into the Financial Stability Board," Corsi wrote. "The United States has only one vote in the newly constituted Financial Stability Board, a group that will be largely controlled by European central bankers."

The new global regulator now has the authority to examine all U.S. banks, brokerage firms and corporations – including non-financial companies such as the Big Three automakers – to examine operations and determine risk.

The Financial Stability Board then has the international authority to set policies in these corporations, including compensation packages the private boards of directors in the examined companies decide to pay top executives and senior managers.

Morris charged that the Obama administration, by agreeing to create the Financial Stability Board, has gone beyond nationalizing U.S. corporations, to "internationalize" U.S.-based corporations under the control of this new global regulator.

While the G20 focused on regulating risks in hedge funds and derivatives, the authority of the Financial Stability Board extends to any banking, brokerage or business practice by a major U.S. corporation that the Financial Stability Board on its own authority determines is unduly risky.

Under the premise that the IMF and the Financial Stability Board would have the ability to make loans to important U.S. corporations, the IMF and the Financial Stability Board become the effective global regulators over the corporate world, superseding all U.S. governmental authorities, including the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and a host of corporate regulators, including the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Department of Labor.

Red Alert's author (Dr. Corsi) , whose books "The Obama Nation" and "Unfit for Command" have topped the New York Times best-sellers list, said no appeal procedure to any U.S. court or regulator is specified by the G20 communiqué as recourse for a U.S. company that wants to contest a decision by the Financial Stability Board as incorrect, unfounded or otherwise overreaching.

Corsi received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972. For nearly 25 years, beginning in 1981, he worked with banks throughout the U.S. and around the world to develop financial services marketing companies to assist banks in establishing broker/dealers and insurance subsidiaries to provide financial planning products and services to their retail customers. In this career, Corsi developed three different third-party financial services marketing firms that reached gross sales levels of $1 billion in annuities and equal volume in mutual funds. In 1999, he began developing Internet-based financial marketing firms, also adapted to work in conjunction with banks.

In his 25-year financial services career, Corsi has been a noted financial services speaker and writer, publishing three books and numerous articles in professional financial services journals and magazines.

A Tortured Case

Critics of the Bush administration have long charged that it condoned “torture” through its interrogation and detention policies in the War on Terror. Those arguments have yet to sway the Obama White House, which has been reluctant to pursue charges against its predecessor. In Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, however, the Bush administration’s foes have found a man who is willing to turn their allegations into a criminal case. ....

"I am under a lot of pressure to not diagnose PTSD"

A secret recording reveals the Army may be pushing its medical staff not to diagnose post-traumatic stress disorder. The Army and Senate have ignored the implications.

Editor's note: Last June, during a medical appointment, a patient named "Sgt. X" recorded an Army psychologist at Fort Carson, Colo., saying that he was under pressure not to diagnose combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Listen to a segment of the tape here.

By Michael de Yoanna and Mark Benjamin

Read more: Military, Veterans, Murder, Medicine, Suicide, News, post-traumatic stress disorder, Mental Illness, Army, Iraq War, Mark Benjamin, Michael de Yoanna, Coming home

April 8, 2009 | FORT CARSON, Colo. -- "Sgt. X" is built like the Bradley Fighting Vehicle he rode in while in Iraq. He's as bulky, brawny and seemingly impervious as a tank.

In an interview in the high-rise offices of his Denver attorneys, however, symptoms of the damaged brain inside that tough exterior begin to appear. Sgt. X's eyes go suddenly blank, shifting to refocus oddly on a wall. He pauses mid-sentence, struggling for simple words. His hands occasionally tremble and spasm.

For more than a year he's been seeking treatment at Fort Carson for a brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, the signature injuries of the Iraq war. Sgt. X is also suffering through the Army's confusing disability payment system, handled by something called a medical evaluation board. The process of negotiating the system has been made harder by his war-damaged memory. Sgt. X's wife has to go with him to doctor's appointments so he'll remember what the doctor tells him.

But what Sgt. X wants to tell a reporter about is one doctor's appointment at Fort Carson that his wife did not witness. When she couldn't accompany him to an appointment with psychologist Douglas McNinch last June, Sgt. X tucked a recording device into his pocket and set it on voice-activation so it would capture what the doctor said. Sgt. X had no idea that the little machine in his pocket was about to capture recorded evidence of something wounded soldiers and their advocates have long suspected -- that the military does not want Iraq veterans to be diagnosed with PTSD, a condition that obligates the military to provide expensive, intensive long-term care, including the possibility of lifetime disability payments. And, as Salon will explore in a second article Thursday, after the Army became aware of the tape, the Senate Armed Services Committee declined to investigate its implications, despite prodding from a senator who is not on the committee. The Army then conducted its own internal investigation -- and cleared itself of any wrongdoing.

When Sgt. X went to see McNinch with a tape recorder, he was concerned that something was amiss with his diagnosis. He wanted to find out why the psychologist had told the medical evaluation board that handles disability payments that Sgt. X did not, in fact, have PTSD, but instead an "anxiety disorder," which could substantially lower the amount of benefits he would receive if the Army discharged him for a disability. The recorder in Sgt. X's pocket captured McNinch in a moment of candor. (Listen to a segment of the recording here.)

"OK," McNinch told Sgt. X. "I will tell you something confidentially that I would have to deny if it were ever public. Not only myself, but all the clinicians up here are being pressured to not diagnose PTSD and diagnose anxiety disorder NOS [instead]." McNinch told him that Army medical boards were "kick[ing] back" his diagnoses of PTSD, saying soldiers had not seen enough trauma to have "serious PTSD issues."

"Unfortunately," McNinch told Sgt. X, "yours has not been the only case ... I and other [doctors] are under a lot of pressure to not diagnose PTSD. It's not fair. I think it's a horrible way to treat soldiers, but unfortunately, you know, now the V.A. is jumping on board, saying, 'Well, these people don't have PTSD,' and stuff like that."

Contacted recently by Salon, McNinch seemed surprised that reporters had obtained the tape, but answered questions about the statements captured by the recording. McNinch told Salon that the pressure to misdiagnose came from the former head of Fort Carson's Department of Behavioral Health. That colonel, an Army psychiatrist, is now at Fort Lewis in Washington state. "This was pressure that the commander of my Department of Behavioral Health put on me at that time," he said. Since McNinch is a civilian employed by the Army, the colonel could not order him to give a specific, lesser diagnosis to soldiers. Instead, McNinch said, the colonel would "refuse to concur with me, or argue with me, or berate me" when McNinch diagnosed soldiers with PTSD. "It is just very difficult being a civilian in a military setting."

McNinch added that he also received pressure not to properly diagnose traumatic brain injury, Sgt. X's other medical problem. "When I got there I was told I was overdiagnosing brain injuries and now everybody is finding out that, yes, there are brain injuries," he recalled. McNinch said he argued, "'What are we going to do about treatment?' And they said, 'Oh, we are just counting people. We don't plan on treating them.'" McNinch replied, "'You are bringing a generation of brain-damaged individuals back here. You have got to get a game plan together for this public health crisis.' "When McNinch learned he would be quoted in a Salon article, he cut off further questions. He also said he would deny the interview took place. Salon, however, had recorded the conversation.

On the tape and in his interview with Salon, McNinch seemed to admit what countless soldiers not just at Fort Carson but across the Army have long suspected: At least in some cases, the Army tries to avoid diagnoses of PTSD. But McNinch did not directly address why the Army discourages these diagnoses, in either the interview with Salon or the tape-recorded encounter with Sgt. X.

The answer probably has to do with money. David Rudd, the chairman of Texas Tech's department of psychology and a former Army psychologist, explained that every dollar the Army spends on a soldier's benefits is a dollar lost for bullets, bombs or the soldier's incoming replacement. "Each diagnosis is an acknowledgment that psychiatric casualties are a huge price tag of this war," said Rudd. "It is easiest to dismiss these casualties because you can't see the wounds. If they change the diagnosis they can dismiss you at a substantially decreased rate."

A recently retired Army psychiatrist who still works for the government, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said commanders at another Army hospital instructed him to misdiagnose soldiers suffering from war-related PTSD, recommending instead that he diagnose them with other disorders that would reduce their benefits. The psychiatrist said he would be willing to say more publicly about the cases and provide specific names, but only if President Obama would protect him from retaliation.

Salon has dubbed the soldier in this article Sgt. X because he asked not to be identified for fear that it might affect the medical evaluation process meant to gauge his level of disability. He was highly reluctant to speak, but agreed to do so after learning Salon obtained the recording and other information about it from a medical worker at Fort Carson and a congressional aide.

The sergeant spoke with Salon in the presence of his Hogan & Hartson attorneys who are helping him to secure a proper disability discharge from the Army for PTSD and a brain injury, diagnoses now affirmed by independent doctors. Sgt. X never planned to go to the media -- he says, if asked, he will not talk further about the recording with news organizations.

Sgt. X probably received his traumatic brain injury when his Bradley Fighting Vehicle buckled in an explosion during his second deployment to Iraq in 2005-06. It was the worst of a handful of nearby blasts he'd survived, and it knocked him unconscious for 30 seconds.

When Sgt. X regained consciousness, he saw that the toes of another soldier had been sheared off. The tank hull had buckled and the inside had filled with smoke. Some of his fellow soldiers were soaked in blood..

Even after that, as a point of pride, the crew insisted on accompanying their disabled tank back to their headquarters. Besides causing his brain injury, the blast had exacerbated an injury to Sgt. X's hip, but he faced the problem with little complaint. He numbed the pain with Motrin. "You don't report problems," he said. "It's a stigma."

There is some evidence that Sgt. X's experience with McNinch represents part of a broader scandal, as suggested by the former Army psychiatrist who told Salon about identical problems at another post. Last year, VoteVets.org and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released an e-mail from Norma Perez, a psychologist in Texas, to staff at a Department of Veterans Affairs facility there. In addition to the Army, that department also provides veterans with benefits. "Given that we are having more and more compensation seeking veterans, I'd like to suggest that you refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out," Perez wrote in the e-mail dated March 20, 2008. She suggested the staff "consider a diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder." As opposed to those with PTSD, veterans with adjustment disorder, a temporary condition, typically do not receive disability payments from the government.

Then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama fired a letter off to the V.A. about that previous controversy, calling the e-mail "outrageous," demanding an investigation. The Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee last June held a hearing on that e-mail. Perez claimed she sent that e-mail "to stress the importance of an accurate diagnosis." End of story.

VoteVets.org and CREW, the two groups who unearthed the V.A. e-mail, reacted viscerally to this new tape obtained by Salon. "This is further evidence our troops are not receiving the mental health treatment they need and deserve," said Melanie Sloan, CREW executive director. "The president and congressional leaders must hold those responsible accountable and make sure the message is sent far and wide that our returning troops are to be diagnosed as their symptoms, not the military's finances, dictate."

"We've heard all kinds of stories from vets who had trouble getting PTSD diagnoses," said VoteVets.org Chairman John Soltz. "It's crucial that we have department-wide investigations at the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs to determine if this came from someone high up, and how many troops and veterans were jilted out of a proper diagnosis from the government."

Many publications, including Salon, and even some government agencies have documented other instances of reluctance to recognize mental wounds caused by war at bases across the country.

• A recent weeklong series in Salon showed how apparent resistance to identifying combat stress ends up grinding down the lowest-ranking troops, sometimes with deadly results. Those articles included, for example, the story of Pvt. Adam Lieberman, who suffered with severe symptoms of PTSD. For two years, the Army blamed his problems on a personality disorder, anxiety disorder or alcohol abuse but resisted diagnosing him with PTSD until after his suicide attempt last October.
• The Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, last October questioned why 2,800 war veterans were labeled with personality disorder diagnoses, another cheap label the Army has been accused of plastering on soldiers instead of PTSD.
• In November 2005 the Department of Veterans Affairs halted a review of 72,000 veterans who receive monthly disability payments for mental trauma from war. The department wanted to make sure the veterans were not faking their symptoms. Salon first exposed the review that August. Then Daniel L. Cooper, the V.A.'s undersecretary for benefits, told Salon at the time that, "We have a responsibility to preserve the integrity of the rating system and to ensure that hard-earned taxpayer dollars are going to those who deserve and have earned them." The department stopped the process a month after a Vietnam veteran in New Mexico, agitated over the review, shot himself to death in protest. .
• In early 2005, Salon exposed a pattern of medical officials searching to pin soldiers' problems on childhood trauma instead of combat stress at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Salon will explore Thursday how the Army was made aware of Sgt. X's tape, how the Senate Armed Services Committee declined to conduct an investigation, and how the Army absolved itself of any blame for wrongdoing. A unit of the Army's Medical Command (which oversees Fort Carson's Department of Behavioral Health) conducted an "informal" investigation last summer that found potential "systemic" problems that could influence diagnoses, but determined that no one in the Army's Medical Command was to blame. In a report dated July 28, it specifically found that no Fort Carson or Medical Command staff "attempted to coerce or otherwise influence" diagnoses. This directly contradicts McNinch's statements on the tape and in his interview with Salon.

If you are aware of a soldier who has served or is serving in the Iraq or Afghanistan conflicts and is having trouble getting a PTSD diagnosis or proper benefits, please contact Mark Benjamin at mbenjamin (at) salon (dot) com.

VA patient tests HIV-positive after clinic mistake

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) - The Veterans Affairs Department is investigating whether there's a link between a patient's positive HIV test and unsterilized equipment that may have exposed thousands of veterans to infectious diseases.

The positive test was the first reported since the department warned veterans treated at three clinics that they might be at risk.

The VA previously reported that hepatitis was found in 16 patients, but the agency cautioned there was no way to prove that the patients contracted the illnesses because of treatment at their facilities. ....

Analyst warns eligibility could become flashpoint

(Compiler's note: This is a must read article. This is NOT GOING AWAY!!)

By Bob Unruh

'It is morphing now to include members of the armed forces'

A security analyst who provides intelligence information to a wide range of law enforcement, private corporation and security interests has written in a publicly released "white paper" that the issue of Barack Obama's eligibility to be president could become a "flashpoint" in the United States.

The suggestion comes from Lyle Rapacki, a former police officer who has worked in the field of psychological disorders for years. Since the 1990s, he has provided his analysis in public "white paper" reports and classified documents to various safety and security interests.

Rapacki's report cited the continuing controversy over Obama's birth certificate and a long list of lawsuits that have alleged he is not eligible to be president under the Constitution's requirement that the office be occupied only by a "natural born" citizen.

If the president would be found to be ineligible, Rapacki suggested, there would be a "constitutional crisis" over which of his orders, laws and actions "should be valid."

"If, however, this case continues and Mr. Obama fights revealing his documentation, there are growing concerns of civil unrest, or worse, being unleashed in the streets of our nation," the report said. "The economic crisis could with this type of constitutional crisis could prove to be a 'flashpoint' that would test conventional law enforcement and elements of homeland security."

Rapacki, now vice president of protective services for Southwest Risk Advisors Inc., also has provided reports to InfraGard, an FBI program that collects information about security, terror, intelligence and other issues.

.... Rapacki said one of his areas of work was to look at various issues that could provide the potential for civil disobedience or civil unrest, and he spotted references to concerns over Obama's eligibility and started looking into it.

His concern rose when he reviewed the implications of an ineligible president, he said.

"This could create a constitutional crisis. What does it do to the decisions that already have been made, already done for the economic issues that can't be taken back?" he wondered.

The investigator, who does not take a political stance on the issues, suggested the public dissemination of his concerns would "stimulate thought and discussion."

WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama's status as a "natural born citizen." The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Some of the lawsuits question whether he was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama's American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.

Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.

Further, others question his citizenship by virtue of his attendance in Indonesian schools during his childhood and question on what passport did he travel to Pakistan three decades ago.

Adding fuel to the fire is Obama's persistent refusal to release documents that could provide answers. While his supporters cite an online version of a "Certification of Live Birth" from Hawaii, critics point out such documents actually were issued for children not born in the state.

Some of the worries expressed by the new intelligence analysis were raised earlier by Ambassador Alan Keyes, a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Obama's eligibility. That case, now heading for appeal, claims: "If Mr. Obama is not constitutionally eligible to serve as president of the United States, then no act that he takes is, arguably, valid, the laws that he signs would not be valid, the protective orders that he signs would be null and void, and every act that he takes would be subject to legal challenge, both in courts of the United States of America, and in international courts, and that, therefore, it is important for the voters to know whether he, or any candidate for president in the future, is eligible to serve in that office."

The analysis said the issues began as "campaign rhetoric" but now "is moving toward a crescendo."

Rapacki said when California attorney Orly Taitz, who is working through her Defend Our Freedoms Foundation on several legal challenges to Obama, approached Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts with a challenge to review the facts, the dynamics of the situation changed.

"Chief Justice Roberts personally agreed to review the legal brief and the complaint saying such in front of the audience," he reported.

"Motions to be heard on this critical constitutional matter have been dismissed already, or not even accepted by courts in many states – New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Washington, Texas, North Carolina to name a few. But the issue will not go away; it is morphing now to include active members of the armed forces serving in 'Hot Zones' or theaters of combat."

The analysis also noted Taitz had submitted to the U.S. attorney general, the FBI and others requests for investigations.

The intelligence report cited a request already submitted to Washington for a special prosecutor similar to the one appointed during Watergate.

John Eidsmoe, an expert on the U.S. Constitution now working with the Foundation on Moral Law, separately has told WND the request for information is a legitimate course of action.

"She basically is asking, 'By what authority' is Obama president," he told WND. "In other words, 'I want you to tell me by what authority. I don't really think you should hold the office.'

Eidsmoe said it's clear that Obama has something in the documentation of his history, including his birth certificate, college records and other documents, "he does not want the public to know."

What else could be the reason for his hiring law firms across the nation to fight any request for information as basic as his Occidental College records from the early 1980s, he asked.

While an Obama spokesman one time called the allegations "garbage," the president and his team have withheld other comments. But here is a partial listing and status update for some of the cases over Obama's eligibility:

• New Jersey attorney Mario Apuzzo has filed a case on behalf of Charles Kerchner and others alleging Congress didn't properly ascertain that Obama is qualified to hold the office of president.


• Pennsylvania Democrat Philip Berg has three cases pending, including Berg vs. Obama in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a separate Berg vs. Obama which is under seal at the U.S. District Court level and Hollister vs. Soetoro a/k/a Obama, (now dismissed) brought on behalf of a retired military member who could be facing recall to active duty by Obama.
  
  
• Leo Donofrio of New Jersey filed a lawsuit claiming Obama's dual citizenship disqualified him from serving as president. His case was considered in conference by the U.S. Supreme Court but denied a full hearing.


• Cort Wrotnowski filed suit against Connecticut's secretary of state, making a similar argument to Donofrio. His case was considered in conference by the U.S. Supreme Court, but was denied a full hearing.


• Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes headlines a list of people filing a suit in California, in a case handled by the United States Justice Foundation, that asks the secretary of state to refuse to allow the state's 55 Electoral College votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election until Obama verifies his eligibility to hold the office. The case is pending, and lawyers are seeking the public's support.


• Chicago lawyer Andy Martin sought legal action requiring Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle to release Obama's vital statistics record. The case was dismissed by Hawaii Circuit Court Judge Bert Ayabe.
  
  
• Lt. Col. Donald Sullivan sought a temporary restraining order to stop the Electoral College vote in North Carolina until Barack Obama's eligibility could be confirmed, alleging doubt about Obama's citizenship. His case was denied.
  
  
• In Ohio, David M. Neal sued to force the secretary of state to request documents from the Federal Elections Commission, the Democratic National Committee, the Ohio Democratic Party and Obama to show the presidential candidate was born in Hawaii. The case was denied.
  
  
• Also in Ohio, there was the Greenberg v. Brunner case which ended when the judge threatened to assess all case costs against the plaintiff.
  
  
• In Washington state, Steven Marquis sued the secretary of state seeking a determination on Obama's citizenship. The case was denied.
  
  
• In Georgia, Rev. Tom Terry asked the state Supreme Court to authenticate Obama's birth certificate. His request for an injunction against Georgia's secretary of state was denied by Georgia Superior Court Judge Jerry W. Baxter.


• California attorney Orly Taitz has brought a case, Lightfoot vs. Bowen, on behalf of Gail Lightfoot, the vice presidential candidate on the ballot with Ron Paul, four electors and two registered voters.

In addition, other cases cited on the RightSideofLife blog as raising questions about Obama's eligibility include:

• In Texas, Darrel Hunter vs. Obama later was dismissed.
  
  
• In Ohio, Gordon Stamper vs. U.S. later was dismissed.
  
  
• In Texas, Brockhausen vs. Andrade.
  
  
• In Washington, L. Charles Cohen vs. Obama.
  
  
• In Hawaii, Keyes vs. Lingle, dismissed.

Obama looks at climate engineering

(Compiler's note: Please.... the earth has been cooling now for a few years. Please wake up and get off our backs with regulations, crazy solutions to problems that don't exist and for which you really have not fix, and etc., etc. You're going to have to find another way to gain control and redistribute our people's money. There I said it. I for one am growing very tired of this ....)


WASHINGTON (AP) - The president's new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth's air.

John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.....

Hijacked US crew 'retake vessel'

from BBC News

The US crew of a ship hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia has retaken control of the vessel, according to Pentagon sources.

Unnamed US defence officials said one pirate had been captured by the crew of the Maersk Alabama, seized earlier in the Indian Ocean.

But the vessel's Danish owners, Maersk, said they could not confirm that the crew had fought off the pirates.

It was the sixth ship seized off Somalia in recent days.

The Associated Press quoted a defence official as saying: "The crew is back in control of the ship.

"It's reported that one pirate is on board under crew control - the other three were trying to flee."

Reports suggest the other three pirates jumped overboard.

Maersk's chief executive, John Reinhart, said he could not confirm that the ship had been retaken, but told AFP news agency he believed the crew was safe.

The ship was attacked by several small boats in the early hours of Wednesday in an incident apparently lasting for about five hours.

Maritime officials said the vessel took all possible evasive action before it reported that the pirates had boarded.

More than 130 pirates attacks, including close to 50 successful hijackings, were reported in 2008, threatening one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.