William J. Clinton Foundation

Friday, October 29, 2010

Jon Stewart and We Are Change video inside

One month ago I was punched in the face by the executive producer of the Daily Show. I also had my camera damaged by another Daily Show writer, and had my shirt torn by Jon Stewart’s security guard. Jon Stewart and the writers and staff of the Daily Show were appearing at a popular book store in Manhattan to present and sign copies of their new book of humorous pictures and captions. I was moved to peacefully confront Jon and ask him a few questions after watching his show a few nights earlier. On the September 16th installment of The Daily Show, before a gushing and edge-free interview with notorious criminal Bill Clinton, Jon announced his “Rally to Restore Sanity”. He billed this as a rally for which people should “use indoor voices” and “take it down a notch for America”. It was clear that this “Rally to Restore Sanity” was, in part, to be a mockery of the now co-opted and neo-conned Tea Party movement and its successful rallies featuring Glenn “the Judas Goat” Beck and the Palin the Pied Piper of soccer moms. It was also designed to poke fun at the more vocal elements of the anti-war movement. Essentially, the Daily Show had cooked up a rally for wishy-washy people who believed that other people were “insane” for being enraged by a corrupt and out-of-control government that increasingly ignores We the People, while bowing to Wall Street bankers, corporate interests and the military-industrial complex. Jon’s rally was to be for those who think injustice, theft and mass murder should just be laughed off (and that sarcasm is what should pass for humor). Getting upset and then

Jon Stewart wikipedia
EXCERPT:
Stewart was born into a Jewish family in New York City. He and his older brother, Larry Leibowitz (presently Chief Operating Officer of the New York Stock Exchange)
Lawrence Leibowitz
Chief Operating Officer
NYSE Euronext Inc
New York , NY
Sector: FINANCIAL / Diversified Investments
Officer since July 2007

49 Years Old
Mr. Leibowitz was appointed chief operating officer in the first quarter of 2010. In this capacity, he is responsible for operations management, global cash execution and global listings. He previously served as group executive vice president and head of U.S. Execution and Global Technology from 2007 until 2009. He joined NYSE Euronext in 2007, having served as managing director and chief operating officer, Americas Equities, at UBS Investment Bank. Prior to joining UBS in 2004, Mr. Leibowitz held the position of executive vice president, co-head of Schwab Capital Markets. He currently serves on the board of National Stock Exchange of India and has also served on many industry boards and committees, among them the Market Structure Committee of the former Securities Industry Association (now SIFMA).

Larry Leibowitz (Jon Stewart's brother)
EXCERPT:
Introduction
Chairman Kanjorski, Ranking Member Garrett and Members of the Subcommittee, my name is Larry Leibowitz and I am Chief Operating Officer of NYSE Euronext. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

We commend the Subcommittee for your rapid response to the events of last Thursday. As you know, we have begun a dialogue with our regulators and other trading venues, and it has been very productive. We are committed to working with you and other market participants to restore confidence and enhance investor safeguards in the future.

Today I would like to discuss three things:

• First, the high-level causes of the events last Thursday;

Jon Stewarts brother says mom pretty happy with both

A bit grayer and world wearier, maybe, but there’s no mistaking the family resemblance between NYSE Chief Operating Office Larry Leibowitz and his kid brother Jon Stewart. Unlike the Daily Show host, Leibowitz mostly keeps a low profile, although he did find himself in the spotlight even before his appearance at the Reuters Global Exchanges and Trading Summit on Monday. The Wall Street Journal interviewed him in a story about the NYSE’s effort to turn some high frequency traders — who have been chipping away at the exchange’s business — into exchange floor traders.

Leibowitz may be sick of the Jon Stewart questions, but when pesky Reuters editors and journalists inevitably raised them, he answered them with relatively good humor.

“I know my mother’s pretty happy with both,” the NYSE’s resident electronic trading expert said when asked whether it was tough living in the shadow of the celebrated news comedian. Leibowitz allowed that it was hard to imagine two brothers who had chosen more different careers. At this point, they even have different last names, after Leibowitz’s younger brother adopted a stage name.

While Stewart hasn’t shied away from financial themes, especially in his much-hyped verbal smackdown with Jim Cramer, Leibowitz said his kid brother hasn’t been running to him to ask for advice, even when his show has tackled topics like short selling and high frequency trading. But he admitted that being an older sibling, ”I give it to him anyway sometimes.”

Would he ever go on the Daily Show as a guest? That would be a no. “I probably wouldn’t make a very good guest,” he said, noting he didn’t have any books to plug. “I have tried to fly under the radar.”

Friday, October 22, 2010

Daniel Pipes wikipedia
EXCERPT:
Daniel Pipes (born September 9, 1949) is an American writer, and political blogger who focuses on criticism of Islam and Islamism.[1] Pipes is the founder and director of the Middle East Forum, a conservative[citation needed] think tank, as well as the founder of Campus Watch, a controversial[citation needed] organization which states its mission to be critiquing poor scholarship concerning the Middle East, but which has been characterized by some critics as a vehicle for harassing scholars critical of Israel.[2][3][4]

Daniel Pipes and Muslims
EXCERPT:
Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Globalist Theater’s Brightest New Star
by Tony Cartalucci

Geert Wilders (left) and Robert Spencer (right) prepare for a
breathtaking propagandizing performance.
The depth of the globalist’s war propaganda and the sinister hands steering it in America was previously reported on in “Globalist Stunts: Islamophobia.” Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) members John Bolton and Daniel Pipes and underlings like David Horowitz, his pet propagandist Robert Spencer of “Jihad Watch,” and fellow propagandist, Pam Geller of “Atlas Shrugs,” were all seen orchestrating crass fear mongering featuring the manufactured threat of “radical Islam.”

These same names were also prominent during the CFR funded, organized, supported and protested “Ground Zero Mosque.” The latest globalist stunt involving the fraudulent “War on Terror” is no different.

Ground Zero Mosque
EXCERPT:
http://www.newamericancentury.org/Bushletter.htm
http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm

Elliott Abrams, CFR member, PNAC signatory.
Eliot Cohen, CFR member, PNAC signatory.
Lewis Libby, CFR member, PNAC signatory
Richard Cheney, CFR member, PNAC signatory
Vin Weber, CFR member, PNAC signatory
Paul Wolfowitz, CFR member, PNAC signatory
Douglas Feith, CFR member, PNAC signatory
John Bolton, CFR member, PNAC signatory
John McCain, CFR member, PNAC signatory
Daniel Pipes, CFR member, PNAC signatory
Robert Zoellick, CFR member, PNAC signatory
Robert Kagan, CFR member, PNAC signatory
Francis Fukuyama, CFR member, PNAC signatory

Epilogue

There is a conspiracy to dominate the planet. It is not one of Christians, not Muslims, not Jews, not even Zionists, but rather godless nihilistic megalomaniacs. The globalists play each and every angle, whatever will work in a certain geological location, upon a certain cultural paradigm. The goal of meticulously documenting the CFR connections above to the foundations funding "Imam" Faisal Abdul Rauf, was to illustrate how large the CFR is. It illustrates how interconnected the CFR is with other think tanks and foundations.

Upon the CFR's 2009 roster, you can find authors of what you read in the bookstore, in the pages of Newsweek and Time magazine, the commentators you see in news editorials and the expert commentators brought onto mainstream media news shows.

The CFR has a sister organization in the United Kingdom called the Chatham House. It is equally as large, backed by the world's largest corporations, and infiltrating your daily news with their nefarious interjections.

Accenture
Amsterdam & Peroff
Aviva
BakerPlatt
Barclays Capital
BBC
BHP Billiton International Services Ltd
Bloomberg
Booz & Company
British American Tobacco
City of London
Clifford Chance LLP
Coca-Cola Great Britain
Control Risks
Detica
Economist, The
Eni S.p.A.
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
GlaxoSmithKline
Goldman Sachs International
Herbert Smith LLP
Home Office
HSBC Holdings plc
Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales
Japan Bank for International Cooperation
JICA UK Office
Kuwait Petroleum Corporation
MediCapital Bank plc
Merck & Co Inc
Mitsubishi Corporation
Nomura International plc
Oliver Wyman
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Rio Tinto plc
Royal Bank of Scotland
Saudi Petroleum Overseas Ltd
Standard Chartered Bank
Tesco
The European Azerbaijan Society
Thomson Reuters
TNK-BP
Towers Watson
United States of America, Embassy of the
Vodafone Group
Warburg Pincus

Here, the Huffington Post allots a whole page to the "editorials" of Robert Amsterdam who is grooming another globalist operative, Thaksin Shinwatra who is leading, not "radical" Muslims, but this time a "people's revolution" in Thailand, on behalf of foreign investors. You will notice Robert Amsterdam's firm, Amsterdam & Peroff on the above list, second from top.

Definitely, we can see the same globalists, partnering with any personality that will have them, exploiting them along whatever paradigm will work at the moment. While the CFR uses "Imam" Faisal Abdul Rauf in America to divide along theology and Constitutional rights, the Chatham House and International Crisis Group is using Thaksin Shinwara to divide Thailand along economic class.
Daniel Pipes wikipedia
EXCERPT:

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

I want to know if the 'RUSSIA' mentioned here is the one that Putin is in charge of or the one that is supported by the USA? hmmmmmmmmm Remembering the South Ossetia v Georgia conflict. I really don't like the way wording is used to confuse me in these articles. Maybe it's just me but I really get irritated when the Elites think they can out manuever us with words.

Taliban pre-911
EXCERPT:
Rejecting the Taliban offers to have bin Laden handed over, the U.S. instead pursued a policy of regime change well prior to the 9/11 attacks. Jane’s Information Group reported in March 2001 that “India is believed to have joined Russia, the USA and Iran in a concerted front against Afghanistan’s Taliban regime”, which included support for Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, including “information and logistic support” from Washington.[8] Former Pakistani Foreign Secretary Niaz Naik told the BBC that he had been told by senior U.S. officials in July 2001 at a U.N.-sponsored summit in Berlin that military action would be taken against the Taliban by the middle of October. Preparations had already been coordinated with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Russia. Naik also “said it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if Bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taleban.”[9]

Georgias puppet presidents rule shaky
EXCERPT:
Georgia's president has said he is prepared to hold talks with opposition leaders in an attempt to end a month-long dispute over his rule.

Source: Al Jazeera

Mikheil Saakashvili will meet "any political forces" on Monday to try to resolve differences with them, a statement released on Sunday said.

"Mikheil Saakashvili expresses his hope that the Georgian government together with all political forces will be able to jointly overcome the problems that exist in the country," it said.

Any meeting will be the first face-to-face discussion between Saakashvili and opposition leaders since April 9, when protesters began calling for the president to step down.

Salome Zurabishvili, the leader of the opposition and a former foreign minister, said that Saakashvili's agreement to meet his political adversaries signalled a success for government opponents.

What lessons should Georgians draw from war probe findings?
EXCERPT:
October 02, 2009
By Salome Zurabishvili
The conclusions of the independent commission on the August 2008 war in Georgia, released in a report on September 30, should not only be noted by the European Union, which mandated the report, but should also give all parties grounds for serious thought.

The basic question of who was responsible for the conflict has long been answered. The leaders of both Russia and Georgia are at fault: the Russians for provoking rather than avoiding armed conflict, and then for overreacting, and the Georgian leader for launching a disastrous military attack and thus triggering what ended as a disaster for Georgia and for thousands of civilians.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is personally responsible to his people for having launched the military aggression against Tskhinvali, and thereby giving Russia a free hand to enter, occupy, and formally recognize the independence of the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Say goodby to traditional banking (Bank of America)
EXCERPT:
NEW YORK (AP) -- Free checking as we know it is ending.

The days when you could walk into a bank branch and open an account with no charges and no strings attached appear to be over. Now you have to jump through some hoops -- keep a high balance, use direct deposit or swipe your debit card several times a month.

One new account at Bank of America charges $8.95 per month if you want to bank with a teller or get a paper statement.

Almost all of the largest U.S. banks are either already making free checking much more difficult to get or expected to do so soon, with fees on even basic banking services.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Machines of War/Blackwater/Monsanto and Bill Gates
14.10.2010
Silvia Ribeiro
La Jornada
A report by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation (Blackwater's Black Ops, 9/15/2010) revealed that the largest mercenary army in the world, Blackwater (now called Xe Services) clandestine intelligence services was sold to the multinational Monsanto. Blackwater was renamed in 2009 after becoming famous in the world with numerous reports of abuses in Iraq, including massacres of civilians. It remains the largest private contractor of the U.S. Department of State "security services," that practices state terrorism by giving the government the opportunity to deny it.

Monsanto Now Owns Blackwater Xe
SAME AS ABOVE

Monsanto paid Blackwater Xe to spy on anti gmo Activists
EXCERPT:
“… entities closely linked to the private security firm Blackwater have provided intelligence, training and security services to US and foreign governments as well as several multinational corporations, including Monsanto, Chevron, the Walt Disney Company, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and banking giants Deutsche Bank and Barclays, according to documents obtained by The Nation. Blackwater’s work for corporations and government agencies was contracted using two companies owned by Blackwater’s owner and founder, Erik Prince: Total Intelligence Solutions and the Terrorism Research Center (TRC). Prince is listed as the chairman of both companies in internal company documents, which show how the web of companies functions as a highly coordinated operation.”

A spokesperson for Monsanto, reached by Scahill, first denied the relationship with Blackwater, but then admitted that Monsanto had paid Total Intelligence for intelligence reoprts

Above top secret Monsanto-Xe (Blackwater)
EXCERPT:
One of the most incendiary details in the documents is that Blackwater, through Total Intelligence, sought to become the "intel arm" of Monsanto, offering to provide operatives to infiltrate activist groups organizing against the multinational biotech firm.

De-Population conspiracy involving Monsanto
EXCERPT:
De-Population Conspiracy Involving Monsanto
June 10, 2010 Medical Issues, crime
A monopoly is exclusive control of a commodity or service that makes it possible to manipulate prices. This is accomplished through governmental regulations used to enforce the monopoly. The way to break a monopoly is to remove those laws. This is simple, but not easy in the case of Monsanto, because the roots extend to international, federal, state, and local government regulations. Monopoly owners corner a market by taking control of the resource AND preventing others from using the resource.
The famous robber baron JD Rockefeller refined this method of monopolization with Standard Oil; he created a cartel (an agreement between companies to avoid competition) with the companies he could not buy or force out of business through extraordinarily corrupt business practices. Competition creates a free market; JD Rockefeller is famous for saying, “Competition is a sin.” Of course, the Rockefellers have an enormous stake in biotechnology and the Rockefeller Foundation funded the biology centers and research that led to the creation of GMOs; F. William Engdahl’s book, “Seeds of Destruction”, is highly recommended for the complete details.

This article is intended as a brief sketch to explore the expanse of the roots of Monsanto & understand the machinery of a monopoly, therefore, the science and health issues behind GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) will not be covered in detail. GMOs are created by injecting virus and/ or bacteria into a plant or animal cell, along with the DNA of life forms that would never mate in nature (like spiders and goats). There is extensive proof that GMOs are detrimental to health.(1) Monsanto’s business practices are corrupt- for example, there have been cases where seed sold as non- GMO were actually contaminated. GMOs are not limited to food; industrial chemicals, plastic and drugs can be grown in plants like corn, and there is an overwhelming chance that you have ingested these chemicals and drugs, if you live in America.(2) Cross pollination is rampant and is an enormous problem, thereby polluting non-GMO farms and endangering America’s food supply. Most Americans are unaware that up to 75% of their daily diet is comprised of GMO food.

This is all part of the United Nations Agenda 21 Sustainable Development depopulation program (remember that the Rockefellers have overwhelming influence with the UN). Monsanto promises their seeds are more prolific and can feed more people, but the opposite has often proven to be the truth. The most shocking part of this is that the USDA co-owns a patent, along with Monsanto, on a gene (the Terminator) that can destroy food and be used as a bioweapon.

Monsanto’s monopoly is firmly entrenched within the US government:

1. US Patent Office- this where the problem began, in allowing a patent on life. Monsanto’s seeds are protected under an ‘Intellectual Property’ patent; the seeds are good for one season. When a farmer buys Monsanto seed, he also signs the Technology Agreement that stipulates he may not collect seed and replant it. While the farmer is free to plant any type of seed he wishes, the courts have maintained that farmers are not tied to Monsanto seeds in future seasons. However, it is difficult and costly to stop using Monsanto seed once a farmer has planted it because he may not collect and replant the Monsanto seeds collected after harvest, and must buy all new seeds for the new season. Even if a farmer, having once planted GMO seed, then wishing to switch back, faces the issue of “volunteers” (seeds in the ground from the previous planting) which appear and Monsanto has aggressively sued farmers for patent infringement.(3)

Monsanto is the GMO leader because it has a proprietary patent on the method for creating GMOs, so other companies pay an exorbitant fee to make GMOs.

Monsanto is now patenting non GMO seed as well; this is essentially a patent on nature.(4) Monsanto owns over 20,000 patents.
2.. FDA (US Food & Drug Administration): Many people rely on the FDA to determine the safety of food or a product. The FDA is corrupt, particularly within the realm of GMOs. The only “testing” for safety that is required is for the GMO producer to submit a self authored report on the new GMO’s safety. This fraud was accomplished by Michael Taylor, a lawyer who went to work for the FDA and established the “no testing” policy by reasoning that GMOs are “SUBSTANTIALLY EQUIVALENT” to food, and food has already been determined to be safe. However, this is an oxymoron because in order to receive a patent, the new product must be different. Michael Taylor (second cousin to Tipper Gore) is notorious for his “revolving door” employment within the US government and Monsanto- he was recently chosen by Obama as the Deputy Commissioner for foods in the FDA.(6)

GMO seed companies prohibit any testing of their products, by contract, to their buyers.(7)

The FDA has made it illegal to label GMO foods as containing GMOs, as they are GRAS (generally recognized as safe). Some companies, like Whole Foods, are starting to label their products as NO GMOs.

3. President George HW Bush, under executive power, mandated the Doctrine of Substantial Equivalence of 1992, the same year that Agenda 21 was introduced. This policy requires NO health or safety testing before a GMO product is released into the public.(8)

4. USDA (United States Department of Agriculture): This government body determines whether a plant is safe to grow. GMOs are unsafe to grow; wind, seeds blown from trucks and insect pollination bring GMO pollen and seeds into non-GMO farmland and contaminate the nearby non-GMO farms.

Outrageously, the USDA co-owns the patent on the “Terminator Gene”, which means that the seeds have been modified to “commit suicide” after one season, and will not germinate if they are planted in a subsequent season. This technology could potentially wipe out food on the planet in one season. The US government has been funding GMO research since 1983; William Engdahl has said that this will give the owners control of the food seeds over entire regions and nations, when commercialized. The USDA and the co-owner of the “terminator” patent promised not to commercialize it in 1999, however, in 2001, they signed a commercialization agreement. Seven years later, Monsanto bought out the co-owner and is now partnered with the USDA for the “Terminator” patent. Food can be used as a weapon.(9)

The USDA has also engaged in illegal dispersal of subsidies to Monsanto as well as giving farmers a break on crop insurance premiums if they used Monsanto seeds, which is tantamount to product endorsement. Remember the USDA is business partners with Monsanto. This is where your tax dollars are going. We are paying for our government to poison us.

5. EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency): The EPA is responsible for determining the safety of GMOs in the environment. GMOs can withstand more pesticides and herbicides than normal crops, so more of these toxins are used and a resistance to the toxins has occurred. GMO pollen has been proven to be detrimental to certain insects; many believe that the great bee die- off in the US is a result of large quantities of pesticides sprayed on GMO crops plus, some crops have pesticides contained in their the DNA. The EPA often relies on the chemical producer for its research and safety testing.(10)

The EPA is a corrupt agency that continually fails to protect public health: there are over 80,000 chemicals used today, but only a few hundred have been tested for safety.(11)

6. The US Supreme Court is an agency of the US government, which has usurped untold power. Currently, there is a case in the Supreme Court, to uphold a ban on GMO alfalfa, as GMOs often contaminate nearby farms via cross pollination; a decision is expected this month. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was an attorney for Monsanto from 1976 to 1979, but he has failed to disqualify himself in a direct conflict of interest.

A ban was placed on the GMO alfalfa due to danger of cross contamination (not safety of the food, but whether the plant is safe to grow- the USDA failed to carry out a proper Environmental Impact Study); the prior rulings have been against Monsanto, and this is their 3rd appeal. Justice Scalia has made remarks that contamination isn’t “the end of the world”. However, it does affect farmers regarding international trade because there are many GMO bans in Europe, and they don’t want GMO crops from the US. A judgement against contamination and in favor of safety would put the USDA’s lack of ethics in preventing contamination in the news and could negate prior lower court decisions that failed to protect non- GMO farmers from contamination. And a ruling in favor of food safety could put the USDA in the news again, connecting the dots of collusion because of their refusal to ban GMOs, in order to protect their own patent on the Terminator Gene. So, given the evidence of governmental complicity in GMO monopolies, incompetence and ignorance, don’t expect the miracle of common sense to prevail in this case.

Incidentally, Elena Kagan, Obama’s candidate for the Supreme Court, sided with Monsanto in the alfalfa case, during the petition period, although it was outside of he jurisdiction as solicitor general.(12)

7. State governments have also contributed to the monopoly by blocking local bans on GMOs. Mendocino and Marin Counties, in Northern California, banned GMOs in 2004. California’s Central Valley, the nation’s largest produce provider, did not follow the GMO ban. Lobbying from GMO seed producers was intense, as the monopoly became threatened. The response was that a number of States enacted pre-emptive laws preventing local governments from declaring bans on GMOs within their jurisdictions.(13)

8. Monsanto has a long history of lying, lobbying, bribing and pressuring government scientists and government officers in order to keep their monopoly in place.(14) Monsanto has used very dirty business practices to corner the market on seeds. Within Monsanto contracts there are provisions that mandate the destruction of all Monsanto seeds when a seed company changes ownership: the result is that this makes it very easy for Monsanto buy seed companies cheaply in the bidding process. Another way that Monsanto has eliminated competition is through withholding non GMO seeds from the market. They have also undercut their prices, making their cheaper product appear to be a good deal to farmers. News stories about the detrimental effects of GMOs have also been suppressed, as in the case of some news investigators who got fired from a Fox news investigation over rBHG.

9. US DOJ (Department of Justice) is currently conducting an investigation regarding anti-trust violations (like the concentration of the seed supply being in the possession of 2 companies), but the investigation seems skewed in the favor of Monsanto as farmers are under-represented and the US interest in the GMO monopoly is deeply rooted. In other words this will be a lightweight investigation.(15)

Monday, October 11, 2010

John Lennon
The U.S. vs. John Lennon
Politics 6 Comments

The U.S. vs. John Lennon (2006)In retrospect, it seems absurd that the United States government felt so threatened by the presence of John Lennon that they tried to have him deported. But that’s what happened, as chronicled in directors David Leaf and John Scheinfeld’s The U.S. vs. John Lennon. The film starts slowly, with a familiar look at the former Beatle’s troubled childhood, his outspokenness as one of the Fabs (“We’re more popular now than Jesus Christ,” etc.), and his eventual hookup with Yoko Ono, paralleled by the growth of political protest in ’60s America, particularly against the Vietnam War.

Watch the full documentary now

The U.S. vs John Lennon
EXCERPT:
The U.S. vs. John Lennon is a 2006 documentary film about English musician John Lennon's transformation from a member of The Beatles to a rallying anti-war activist striving for world peace during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The film also details the attempts by the United States government under President Richard Nixon to silence him. The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. It was released in New York City and Los Angeles, California on 15 September 2006, and had a nationwide release on 29 September. A soundtrack composed of John Lennon tracks was released by Capitol Records and EMI on 26 September 2006.

The film makes extensive use of archival footage of John and Yoko Ono, and includes a famously hard-hitting interview conducted by anti-war reporter Gloria Emerson.[1]

The U.K. release was on December 8, 2006, 26 years to the day after the death of John Lennon. The DVD was released on February 13, 2007 in the United States. The film made its cable television debut in the U.S. on August 18, 2007 on VH1 Classic

Harry Reid Taxes are voluntary youtube

Video How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin

Vinod Gupta wikipedia
EXCERPT:
Vinod Gupta is the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chairman of infoGROUP (previously known as infoUSA[1]). Mr. Gupta served as CEO of the company from the time of its incorporation in 1972 until September 1997 and from August 1998 to August 2008[2]. Borrowing $100 from a bank to get started, it has grown from a one-man operation to a global employer of over 5,000 with revenues of $750 million.

He was recognized in Bill Clinton’s book Giving, describing the company as one that “has made a concerted effort to hire people who were on welfare, as well as people who are disabled or who have to support themselves after getting out of unsafe domestic situations.”

He was appointed by President Clinton to serve as a Trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. He is the director of a mutual fund in the Everest mutual fund family. Mr. Gupta was also nominated and confirmed to be the United States Consul General to Bermuda as well as nominated by the President to be the United States Ambassador to Fiji[3]

Billary's ugly buddy payments from scandal tied firm
EXCERPT:
This is a more detailed version of a column that was published in The New York Post on May 24, 2007.

Since he left office in 2001, former president Bill Clinton has been paid by InfoUSA, an Omaha, Nebraska company that has been identified as a key provider of specially designed databases that are sold to criminals who use the detailed information to defraud the unsuspecting elderly.

Because Senate financial disclosure rules do not require Hillary Clinton to reveal exactly how much — or for what — the company has paid her husband over the past five years, we don’t know all the details. But we do know this: former presidents – especially Bill Clinton – don’t come cheap. And, just months after he left the presidency, Bill Clinton was paid $200,000 for a speech given to InfoUSA in Omaha. Since then, he has been paid an undisclosed amount each year, listed only as “more than $1000″� for ‘non-employee compensation“� on Senator Clinton’s Senate financial disclosure form.

Hurd scandal pushes HP back into middle of public crossfire
EXCERPTs:
1) Rajiv Gupta
Director since Jan. 2009
Age: 64
Senior adviser to New Mountain Capital, a private equity firm, since July 2009; Gupta was chairman and CEO of Rohm and Haas, which produces specialty materials, from 1999 to 2009; he also is a director of The Vanguard Group and Tyco International

2) Tuesday, attorneys for a Massachusetts municipal retirement fund filed an investor lawsuit accusing the HP board of allowing Hurd to misuse corporate assets.

Echoing Minow and other critics, the lawsuit noted that five of the 10 current directors were on HP's board when it was rocked by a different scandal in 2006, when the company admitted using private investigators to obtain the phone records of reporters and directors under false pretenses.

Bradley J. Bell

Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Nalco Holding Company
Naperville , IL
Sector: BASIC MATERIALS / Synthetics
Officer since November 2003

Director , Compass Minerals International, Inc.
Overland Park , KS
Sector: BASIC MATERIALS / Agricultural Chemicals

Director , Idex Corporation
Northbrook , IL
Sector: INDUSTRIAL GOODS / Diversified Machinery

57 Years Old
Bradley J. Bell has been the Company's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer since joining the Company in November 2003. From 1997 to 2003, Mr. Bell served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Rohm and Haas Company, a $6 billion global specialty chemicals manufacturer. There, Mr. Bell played an active role in the company's strategic portfolio review, including substantial acquisitions, divestitures, and development and implementation of post-transaction cost-elimination programs exceeding $500 million. Prior to that, Mr. Bell served as Vice President and Treasurer of both the Whirlpool Corporation, from 1987 to 1997, and the Bundy Corporation, from 1980 to 1987. Mr. Bell is a director and chairman of the audit committee of IDEX Corporation and a director and chairman of the audit committee of Compass Minerals International, Inc.

2 Firms Tied to Phone Lists Will Review Their Policies
EXCERPT:

Published: May 22, 2007
Two companies accused by state and federal regulators of doing business with suspected telemarketing thieves released statements yesterday pledging to examine and change their business practices.

Golden Opportunities: Bilking the Elderly, With a Corporate Assist (May 20, 2007) The two companies — InfoUSA, one of the nation’s largest compilers of consumer information, and Wachovia Bank, the nation’s fourth largest bank — were identified in an article in The New York Times on Sunday as having made it possible for thieves to defraud millions of elderly and other Americans.

Bonner associates coached employees lie generate letters -Will Congress reign such astroturf
EXCERPT:
28 August 09
Bonner & Associates Coached Employees To Lie To Generate Letters to Congress - Will Congress Rein In Such Astroturf?
Tags: american coalition for clean coal electricity (ACCCE), Bonner & Associates, bonner astroturf, General, Waxman-Markey
An interesting and potentially explosive attachment was included with a letter sent to Congressional investigators by Steven R. Ross, an Akin Gump attorney working to defend his client Bonner & Associates, the D.C. public relations firm embroiled in an embarrassing scandal over forged letters sent from its offices to at least three Democratic lawmakers claiming to represent opposition to the Waxman-Markey climate and energy legislation from nine community groups.

Wachovia and InfoUSA
EXCERPT:
InfoUSA advertised lists of “Elderly Opportunity Seekers,” 3.3 million older people “looking for ways to make money,” and “Suffering Seniors,” 4.7 million people with cancer or Alzheimer’s disease. “Oldies but Goodies” contained 500,000 gamblers over 55 years old, for 8.5 cents apiece. One list said: “These people are gullible. They want to believe that their luck can change.”

As Mr. Guthrie sat home alone — surrounded by his Purple Heart medal, photos of eight children and mementos of a wife who was buried nine years earlier — the telephone rang day and night. After criminals tricked him into revealing his banking information, they went to Wachovia, the nation’s fourth-largest bank, and raided his account, according to banking records.

Mexican drug cartels laundered money through Wachovia and Bank of America
EXCERPT:
Wachovia and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) have been helping Mexican drug cartels launder money for years, Bloomberg reports.

Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC), the new owners of Wachovia, admitted in court that Wachovia helped Mexican drug dealers clean drug money, including cash that was used to buy four planes that were used to ship a total of 22 tons of cocaine.

Wells Fargo agreed to pay $160 million in penalties after the DoJ charged Wachovia with violating the Back Secrecy Act.


Bloomberg -Banks financing Mexico's drug cartels admitted in Wells Fargo
EXCERPT:
The smugglers had bought the DC-9 with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.: Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp., Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its August 2010 issue.

This was no isolated incident. Wachovia, it turns out, had made a habit of helping move money for Mexican drug smugglers. Wells Fargo & Co., which bought Wachovia in 2008, has admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers -- including the cash used to buy four planes that shipped a total of 22 tons of cocaine.

Movies

*911-Mysteries
*Loose Change
*Aaron Russo
*IRAQ for Sale
*Monsanto

Videos
*Vaccine Zombie
*The Meatrix
*Alex Jones (Prison Planet) Food videos
*Clinton agrees w/GHW Bush re: NWO
*Harry Reid -Taxes are voluntary
*Brad Will (solidarity song)
*Bill Cooper (Behonld a Pale Horse)
*Rachel Corrie
*Joseph and Jerry Kane (seminars on how to deal with financial situation and stand up for housing crisis
*Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
*KIent Knudeson 'cowcrap' obit
*Illumaniti Bloodlines
*Al Gore's relationship to the Rothschilds (Karena Schiff)
*Smartest men in the room (Enron)
*Chemtrails
*Codex Alimentarius (Dr. Laibo) she moved to Panama to get away from the government
*Diane Feinstein's husband is war monger (Richard)
Diane Feinstein's conflict of interest in Iraq
EXCERPT:
# 23 Feinstein’s Conflict of Interest in Iraq
Top 25 of 2008
0diggsdigg
10Share

Source:
North Bay Bohemian, January 24, 2007
Title: “Senator Feinstein’s Iraq Conflict”
Author: Peter Byrne
http://www.bohemian.com/metro/01.24.07/dianne-feinstein-0704.html

Student Researcher: David Abbott, Amanda Spigut, and Ann Marie O’Toole
Faculty Evaluator: David McCuan, Ph.D.

Dianne Feinstein—the ninth wealthiest member of congress—has been beset by monumental ethical conflicts of interest. As a member of the Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 to the end of 2005, Senator Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions of dollars to her husband’s firms.
From 1997 through the end of 2005, Feinstein’s husband Richard C. Blum was a majority shareholder in both URS Corp. and Perini Corp. She lobbied Pentagon officials in public hearings to support defense projects that she favored, some of which already were, or subsequently became, URS or Perini contracts. From 2001 to 2005, URS earned $792 million from military construction and environmental cleanup projects approved by MILCON; Perini earned $759 million from such projects.
John Lennon v the United States

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Bill Clinton sells the New World Order video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1etgsNU46s4

Alex Jones on contaminated foods video 2 parts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSpkLk0vYmk

Indian Summer Brooks and Dunn (DP v Chowchilla football video)
http://www.cmt.com/videos/brooks-dunn/412368/indian-summer.jhtml

Indian Summer wikipedia
EXCERPT:
The video was released on July 24, 2009 on Country Music Television. It was directed by Shaun Silva. It was filmed in Chowchilla California, in the local high school, home of the Chowchilla Union High School Redskins.[1] The video was voted in #49 On GAC's Top 50 Videos of the Year list.

The Meatrix (themeatrix.com) video inside

Vaccine Zombie video and info
href="http://www.naturalnews.com/vaccine_zombie.html

Brad Will Solidarity Song (Brad Will was murdered in Mexico)video
http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/30701276

911 1of10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwayjX4ipFc
The following excerpt is from another url.
9/11 Mysteries (full length)
1:30:41 - 3 years ago
When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. - Arthur Conan Doyle, Sr., creator of Sherlock ... all » Holmes If it's important to you to believe that Western society is structured such that "good" always triumphs - at least in 'big' matters, that Kojak always 'gets the bad guy', and that the evildoers are a small minority of bad eggs eagerly exposed by the valiant press, this a critical principle to keep in mind. 911 Mysteries demolishes the 'official' 911 conspiracy theory more graphically than any movie previously released. See for yourself what really happened in the 3 demolished buildings in the weeks before 9/11. Since 9-11 the American public has shown a "remarkable indifference to being deceived" (George Soros). But this is changing. As Hugo Chavez put it: "The world is waking up. It's waking up all over. And people are standing up." Millions around the world are realizing that they are being lied to - not in a small, lazy way, but in a big way. It's time to ask hard questions, many of which 911 Mysteries helps to answer. 90 minutes of evidence and analysis, filled with eyewitness testimonials. Point-by-point review of the official story set alongside clear science. The question is not one of politics or nationalism or loyalty, but one of strict and simple physics. Does steel melt in open air fires? What caused the core to vanish in seconds? No agenda. No finger-pointing. Just the facts and the questions. A story of people: Willie Rodriguez's strange recollection of noises on the 34th floor. Who was up there, bumping around? Scott Forbes' similar story, weeks before the towers fell. Here's how shaped charges slice through steel beams to control the way they fall. For greater clarity, download the movie - or buy a DVD online at www.911weknow.com. Finally, make sure you don't miss the ending - minutes 1:26-1:30. Absolutely the best part. 911 is a Keyhole into Consciousness. If you make it through to the other side, everything looks different. Do Not Be Afraid. Follow your curiosity, like Alice in the rabbit hole. You are becoming free. Keywords: World Trade Center, WTC, WTC7, NIST, FEMA, Controlled Demolition, Freedom to Fascism, Thermate, Thermite, 9-11, September 11th, George Bush, Dick Cheney, NORAD, FAA, FBI, CIA, NSA, Larry Silverstein, William Rodriguez, Alex Jones, Loose Change. When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. - Arthur Conan Doyle, Sr., creator of Sherlock ... all » Holmes If it's important to you to believe that Western society is structured such that "good" always triumphs - at least in 'big' matters, that Kojak always 'gets the bad guy', and that the evildoers are a small minority of bad eggs eagerly exposed by the valiant press, this a critical principle to keep in mind. 911 Mysteries demolishes the 'official' 911 conspiracy theory more graphically than any movie previously released. See for yourself what really happened in the 3 demolished buildings in the weeks before 9/11. Since 9-11 the American public has shown a "remarkable indifference to being deceived" (George Soros). But this is changing. As Hugo Chavez put it: "The world is waking up. It's waking up all over. And people are standing up." Millions around the world are realizing that they are being lied to - not in a small, lazy way, but in a big way. It...all »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Coelho
Tony Coelho wikipedia
EXCERPT:
Coelho was born in rural Los Banos, California, to parents of Portuguese descent,[1][2] attended public schools in nearby Dos Palos, and grew up working on his family’s dairy farm. At age 15, Coelho was injured in a pickup truck accident, which doctors later suggested was the precipitating event for the onset of his epilepsy. For years after the accident, Coelho did not know he had the illness.

Coelho graduated with a B.A. from Loyola University of Los Angeles (now Loyola Marymount University) in 1964. At Loyola, he was initiated as a brother in Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and a member of the prestigious Crimson Circle, and later was elected Student Body President during his senior year.

After the Kennedy assassination, Coelho decided to become a priest.[3] He went to a doctor for a medical exam, a prerequisite for entering into the seminary. The doctor informed him that he had epilepsy. Because of canon law, he was unable to become a priest. Once the diagnosis was reported to the state, Coelho lost both his driver's license and his health insurance.

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/c/tony_coelho/index.html
Tony Coelho and Al Gore
EXCERPT:
Political Briefing; Woes Keep Piling Up For Condit Campaign
By B. DRUMMOND AYRES JR.

Three more top Democrats announce they will not support Rep Gary A Condit's re-election effort in California's 18th Congressional District; cite fallout from mysterious disappearance of Chandra Levy; three are Tony Coelho and Sens Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer; photo
January 27, 2002
MORE ON TONY COELHO AND: MISSING PERSONS, ELECTIONS, CALIFORNIA, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, BOXER, BARBARA, CONDIT, GARY A, LEVY, CHANDRA ANN, FEINSTEIN, DIANNE

THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: THE VICE PRESIDENT; IN LATEST SHIFT, GORE'S CAMPAIGN NAMES NEW CHIEF
By RICHARD L. BERKE and KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Vice Pres Al Gore, in yet another reshuffling of his presidential campaign, announces that William M Daley, secretary of commerce and a shrewd operative in Democratic politics, will replace campaign chairman Tony Coelho; Coelho, who has been in hospital with inflamed colon, says he decided to step down on his doctors' advice; but many observers say move was inevitable, given way Gore's campaign has struggled in recent months; coming less than five months before Election Day, change seems unlike...

http://www.politicalfriendster.com/showConnection.php?id1=6740&id2=238
Tony Coehlo
EXCERPT:
Concerned, Monsanto President Robert B. Shapiro called Coehlo for help. Coehlo is a former California Congressman and house majority whip who left that post in 1989 amid accusations that he had improperly used his political contacts to arrange and finance a $100,000 junk-bond investment for himself. Coehlo had become a New York investment banker and, because he remained very well-connected, President Clinton selected him as chief strategist for the Democratic National Committee in 1994.

Coehlo called the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to find out who was blocking approval of rBGH. He spoke with Espy's senior aide, Kim Schnoor. Coehlo has strong ties at USDA. Now disgraced, then-Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy won his first race for Congress in 1986 with substantial financial help from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which was then headed by Coehlo. Further, President Clinton's selection of Espy as Agriculture Secretary came at Coehlo's recommendation. And before the just-appointed Espy picked his new staff, Coehlo proposed that Espy take Kim Schnoor, Choehlo's former Congressional aide as Espy's senior aide. Schnoor had been providing Monsanto officials with critical information regarding White House and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) strategy regarding rBGH.


Karenna Gore Schiff wikipedia
On July 12, 1997 she married Andrew Newman Schiff,[1] a doctor, in Washington D.C.[5][6] Andrew is a descendant of Jacob Schiff. They have three children together: Wyatt Gore Schiff, (born July 4, 1999 in New York City)[7] Anna Hunger Schiff, (born August 23, 2001 in New York City)[8] and Oscar Aitcheson Schiff (born in 2006).[9][10] They currently live in New York City. As of June 9, 2010, she and husband Andrew are separated.[11]

http://www.rense.com/general77/POWERS.HTM
Power
EXCERPT:
The Power Of The Rothschilds
By Fritz Springmeier
Excerpt - Bloodlines of the Illuminati
8-12-7
CO-MASTERS OF THE WORLD --connections to JWs, Mormons, and Judaism
It has been said all roads lead to Rome. For this book, it could be said all paths of investigation lead to the Rothschilds. Charles T. Russell, in a 1891 letter to Baron (Lord) Rothschild, mailed from Palestine, outlined possible courses of action that could be taken to establish the Jews in Palestine. Russell's letters praised the Rothschild's money which established Jewish colonies in Palestine. Russell writes Rothschild, "What is needed here, therefore, next to water and cleanliness, is a good government which will protect the poor from the ravenous and the wealthy. Banking institutions on sound bases, and doing business honorably, are also greatly needed " Russell continues, "May the God of Jacob direct you, my dear Sir, and all interested with you in the deliverance and prosperity of Israel, and blessed will they be who, to any extent, yield themselves as his servants in fulfilling his will as predicted."(14)


Rachel Corrie as a child video

Rachel Corrie the name speaks still
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/steve_duin/index.ssf/2010/09/rachel_corrie_that_name_will_n.html

Rachel Corrie
EXCERPT:
Documentary Probes Death of a Peace Activist
By Amanda Bransford
Rachel Corrie (right) and a local family in Gaza. / Credit:Courtesy of Women Make Movies
Rachel Corrie (right) and a local family in Gaza.

Credit:Courtesy of Women Make Movies

NEW YORK, Oct 8, 2010 (IPS) - The 2003 death of young peace activist Rachel Corrie, crushed by an Israeli military bulldozer, inspired worldwide press coverage, demonstrations and debates – and eventually at least two plays and a number of songs.

Years later, however, mystery still surrounds the exact circumstances of Corrie's death. Simone Bitton's 2009 documentary "Rachel", which premieres Friday night at Anthology Film Archive in New York for a week-long run, examines the contradictory versions of the tragedy.

Corrie was a 23-year-old college student in the United States when she traveled to Rafah, in Gaza, to work with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Palestinian and Israeli activists had formed ISM in 2001 to protest conditions in Palestine through non-violent direct action. Corrie was attempting to act as a human shield in front of a Palestinian home when she was killed.

Katrina National Georgraphic
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/index.html
By Joel K. Bourne, Jr.
Photographs by Robert Caputo and Tyrone Turner

The Louisiana bayou, hardest working marsh in America, is in big trouble—with dire consequences for residents, the nearby city of New Orleans, and seafood lovers everywhere.

It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.

But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.

The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.

"The killer for Louisiana is a Category Three storm at 72 hours before landfall that becomes a Category Four at 48 hours and a Category Five at 24 hours—coming from the worst direction," says Joe Suhayda, a retired coastal engineer at Louisiana State University who has spent 30 years studying the coast. Suhayda is sitting in a lakefront restaurant on an actual August afternoon sipping lemonade and talking about the chinks in the city's hurricane armor. "I don't think people realize how precarious we are,"
Suhayda says, watching sailboats glide by. "Our technology is great when it works. But when it fails, it's going to make things much worse."
(1 of 4) Next >>
<< Prev (2 of 4) Next >>
The chances of such a storm hitting New Orleans in any given year are slight, but the danger is growing. Climatologists predict that powerful storms may occur more frequently this century, while rising sea level from global warming is putting low-lying coasts at greater risk. "It's not if it will happen," says University of New Orleans geologist Shea Penland. "It's when."

Yet just as the risks of a killer storm are rising, the city's natural defenses are quietly melting away. From the Mississippi border to the Texas state line, Louisiana is losing its protective fringe of marshes and barrier islands faster than any place in the U.S. Since the 1930s some 1,900 square miles (4,900 square kilometers) of coastal wetlands—a swath nearly the size of Delaware or almost twice that of Luxembourg—have vanished beneath the Gulf of Mexico. Despite nearly half a billion dollars spent over the past decade to stem the tide, the state continues to lose about 25 square miles (65 square kilometers) of land each year, roughly one acre every 33 minutes.

A cocktail of natural and human factors is putting the coast under. Delta soils naturally compact and sink over time, eventually giving way to open water unless fresh layers of sediment offset the subsidence. The Mississippi's spring floods once maintained that balance, but the annual deluges were often disastrous. After a devastating flood in 1927, levees were raised along the river and lined with concrete, effectively funneling the marsh-building sediments to the deep waters of the Gulf. Since the 1950s engineers have also cut more than 8,000 miles (13,000 kilometers) of canals through the marsh for petroleum exploration and ship traffic. These new ditches sliced the wetlands into a giant jigsaw puzzle, increasing erosion and allowing lethal doses of salt water to infiltrate brackish and freshwater marshes.

While such loss hits every bayou-loving Louisianan right in the heart, it also hits nearly every U.S. citizen right in the wallet. Louisiana has the hardest working wetlands in America, a watery world of bayous, marshes, and barrier islands that either produces or transports more than a third of the nation's oil and a quarter of its natural gas, and ranks second only to Alaska in commercial fish landings. As wildlife habitat, it makes Florida's Everglades look like a petting zoo by comparison.

Such high stakes compelled a host of unlikely bedfellows—scientists, environmental groups, business leaders, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—to forge a radical plan to protect what's left. Drafted by the Corps a year ago, the Louisiana Coastal Area (LCA) project was initially estimated to cost up to 14 billion dollars over 30 years, almost twice as much as current efforts to save the Everglades. But the Bush Administration balked at the price tag, supporting instead a plan to spend up to two billion dollars over the next ten years to fund the most promising projects. Either way, Congress must authorize the money before work can begin.

To glimpse the urgency of the problem afflicting Louisiana, one need only drive 40 minutes southeast of New Orleans to the tiny bayou village of Shell Beach. Here, for the past 70 years or so, a big, deeply tanned man with hands the size of baseball gloves has been catching fish, shooting ducks, and selling gas and bait to anyone who can find his end-of-the-road marina. Today Frank "Blackie" Campo's ramshackle place hangs off the end of new Shell Beach. The old Shell Beach, where Campo was born in 1918, sits a quarter mile away, five feet beneath the rippling waves. Once home to some 50 families and a naval air station during World War II, the little village is now "ga'an pecan," as Campo says in the local patois. Gone forever.

Life in old Shell Beach had always been a tenuous existence. Hurricanes twice razed the community, sending houses floating through the marsh. But it wasn't until the Corps of Engineers dredged a 500-foot-wide (150-meter-wide) ship channel nearby in 1968 that its fate was sealed. The Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, known as "Mr. Go," was supposed to provide a shortcut for freighters bound for New Orleans, but it never caught on. Maybe two ships use the channel on a given day, but wakes from even those few vessels have carved the shoreline a half mile wide in places, consuming old Shell Beach.

Campo settles into a worn recliner, his pale blue eyes the color of a late autumn sky. Our conversation turns from Mr. Go to the bigger issue affecting the entire coast. "What really screwed up the marsh is when they put the levees on the river," Campo says, over the noise of a groaning air-conditioner. "They should take the levees out and let the water run; that's what built the land. But we know they not going to let the river run again, so there's no solution."
<< Prev (2 of 4) Next >><< Prev (3 of 4) Next >>

Denise Reed, however, proposes doing just that—letting the river run. A coastal geomorphologist at the University of New Orleans, Reed is convinced that breaching the levees with a series of gated spillways would pump new life into the dying marshes. Only three such diversions currently operate in the state. I catch up with Reed at the most controversial of the lot—a 26-million-dollar culvert just south of New Orleans named Caernarvon.

"Caernarvon is a prototype, a demonstration of a technique," says Reed as we motor down a muddy canal in a state boat. The diversion isn't filling the marsh with sediments on a grand scale, she says. But the effect of the added river water—loaded as it is with fertilizer from farm runoff—is plain to see. "It turns wetlands hanging on by the fingernails into something quite lush," says Reed.

To prove her point, she points to banks crowded with slender willows, rafts of lily pads, and a wide shallow pond that is no longer land, no longer liquid. More like chocolate pudding. But impressive as the recovering marsh is, its scale seems dwarfed by the size of the problem. "Restoration is not trying to make the coast look like a map of 1956," explains Reed. "That's not even possible. The goal is to restore healthy natural processes, then live with what you get."

Even that will be hard to do. Caernarvon, for instance, became a political land mine when releases of fresh water timed to mimic spring floods wiped out the beds of nearby oyster farmers. The oystermen sued, and last year a sympathetic judge awarded them a staggering 1.3 billion dollars. The case threw a major speed bump into restoration efforts.

Other restoration methods—such as rebuilding marshes with dredge spoil and salt-tolerant plants or trying to stabilize a shoreline that's eroding 30 feet (10 meters) a year—have had limited success. Despite the challenges, the thought of doing nothing is hard for most southern Louisianans to swallow. Computer models that project land loss for the next 50 years show the coast and interior marsh dissolving as if splattered with acid, leaving only skeletal remnants. Outlying towns such as Shell Beach, Venice, Grand Isle, and Cocodrie vanish under a sea of blue pixels.

Those who believe diversions are the key to saving Louisiana's coast often point to the granddaddy of them all: the Atchafalaya River. The major distributary of the Mississippi River, the Atchafalaya, if left alone, would soon be the Mississippi River, capturing most of its flow. But to prevent salt water from creeping farther up the Mississippi and spoiling the water supply of nearby towns and industries, the Corps of Engineers allows only a third of the Mississippi's water to flow down the Atchafalaya. Still, that water and sediment have produced the healthiest wetlands in Louisiana. The Atchafalaya Delta is one of the few places in the state that's actually gaining ground instead of losing it. And if you want to see the delta, you need to go crabbing with Peanut Michel.

"Peanut," it turns out, is a bit of a misnomer. At six foot six and 340 pounds, the 35-year-old commercial fisherman from Morgan City wouldn't look out of place on the offensive line of the New Orleans Saints. We launch his aluminum skiff in the predawn light, and soon we're skimming down the broad, café au lait river toward the newest land in Louisiana. Dense thickets of needlegrass, flag grass, cut grass, and a big-leafed plant Michel calls elephant ear crowd the banks, followed closely by bushy wax myrtles and shaggy willows.

Michel finds his string of crab pots a few miles out in the broad expanse of Atchafalaya Bay. Even this far from shore the water is barely five feet deep. As the sun ignites into a blowtorch on the horizon, Michel begins a well-oiled ritual: grab the bullet-shaped float, shake the wire cube of its clicking, mottled green inhabitants, bait it with a fish carcass, and toss. It's done in fluid motions as the boat circles lazily in the water.

But it's a bad day for crabbing. The wind and water are hot, and only a few crabs dribble in. And yet Michel is happy. Deliriously happy. Because this is what he wants to do. "They call 'em watermen up in Maryland," he says with a slight Cajun accent. "They call us lunatics here. You got to be crazy to be in this business."

Despite Michel's poor haul, Louisiana's wetlands are still a prolific seafood factory, sustaining a commercial fishery that most years lands more than 300 million dollars' worth of finfish, shrimp, oysters, crabs, and other delicacies. How long the stressed marshes can maintain that production is anybody's guess. In the meantime, Michel keeps at it. "My grandfather always told me, Don't live to be rich, live to be happy," he says. And so he does.

After a few hours Michel calls it a day, and we head through the braided delta, where navigation markers that once stood at the edge of the boat channel now peek out of the brush 20 feet (six meters) from shore. At every turn we flush mottled ducks, ibis, and great blue herons. Michel, who works as a hunting guide during duck season, cracks an enormous grin at the sight. "When the ducks come down in the winter," he says, "they'll cover the sun."

To folks like Peanut Michel, the birds, the fish, and the rich coastal culture are reason enough to save Louisiana's shore, whatever the cost. But there is another reason, one readily grasped by every American whose way of life is tethered not to a dock, but to a gas pump: These wetlands protect one of the most extensive petroleum infrastructures in the nation.
<< Prev (3 of 4) Next >>The state's first oil well was punched in south Louisiana in 1901, and the world's first offshore rig went into operation in the Gulf of Mexico in 1947. During the boom years in the early 1970s, fully half of the state's budget was derived from petroleum revenues. Though much of the production has moved into deeper waters, oil and gas wells remain a fixture of the coast, as ubiquitous as shrimp boats and brown pelicans.

The deep offshore wells now account for nearly a third of all domestic oil production, while Louisiana's Offshore Oil Port, a series of platforms anchored 18 miles (29 kilometers) offshore, unloads a nonstop line of supertankers that deliver up to 15 percent of the nation's foreign oil. Most of that black gold comes ashore via a maze of pipelines buried in the Louisiana muck. Numerous refineries, the nation's largest natural gas pipeline hub, even the Strategic Petroleum Reserve are all protected from hurricanes and storm surge by Louisiana's vanishing marsh.

You can smell the petrodollars burning at Port Fourchon, the offshore oil industry's sprawling home port on the central Louisiana coast. Brawny helicopters shuttle 6,000 workers to the rigs from here each week, while hundreds of supply boats deliver everything from toilet paper to drinking water to drilling lube. A thousand trucks a day keep the port humming around the clock, yet Louisiana 1, the two-lane highway that connects it to the world, seems to flood every other high tide. During storms the port becomes an island, which is why port officials like Davie Breaux are clamoring for the state to build a 17-mile-long (27-kilometer-long) elevated highway to the port. It's also why Breaux thinks spending 14 billion dollars to save the coast would be a bargain.

"We'll go to war and spend billions of dollars to protect oil and gas interests overseas,"
Breaux says as he drives his truck past platform anchors the size of two-story houses. "But here at home?" He shrugs. "Where else you gonna drill? Not California. Not Florida. Not in ANWR. In Louisiana. I'm third generation in the oil field. We're not afraid of the industry. We just want the infrastructure to handle it."

The oil industry has been good to Louisiana, providing low taxes and high-paying jobs. But such largesse hasn't come without a cost, largely exacted from coastal wetlands. The most startling impact has only recently come to light—the effect of oil and gas withdrawal on subsidence rates. For decades geologists believed that the petroleum deposits were too deep and the geology of the coast too complex for drilling to have any impact on the surface. But two years ago former petroleum geologist Bob Morton, now with the U.S. Geological Survey, noticed that the highest rates of wetland loss occurred during or just after the period of peak oil and gas production in the 1970s and early 1980s. After much study, Morton concluded that the removal of millions of barrels of oil, trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, and tens of millions of barrels of saline formation water lying with the petroleum deposits caused a drop in subsurface pressure—a theory known as regional depressurization. That led nearby underground faults to slip and the land above them to slump.

"When you stick a straw in a soda and suck on it, everything goes down," Morton explains. "That's very simplified, but you get the idea." The phenomenon isn't new: It was first documented in Texas in 1926 and has been reported in other oil-producing areas such as the North Sea and Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. Morton won't speculate on what percentage of wetland loss can be pinned on the oil industry. "What I can tell you is that much of the loss between Bayou Lafourche and Bayou Terrebonne was caused by induced subsidence from oil and gas withdrawal. The wetlands are still there, they're just underwater." The area Morton refers to, part of the Barataria-Terrebonne estuary, has one of the highest rates of wetland loss in the state.

The oil industry and its consultants dispute Morton's theory, but they've been unable to disprove it. The implication for restoration is profound. If production continues to taper off in coastal wetlands, Morton expects subsidence to return to its natural geologic rate, making restoration feasible in places. Currently, however, the high price of natural gas has oil companies swarming over the marshes looking for deep gas reservoirs. If such fields are tapped, Morton expects regional depressurization to continue. The upshot for the coast, he explains, is that the state will have to focus whatever restoration dollars it can muster on areas that can be saved, not waste them on places that are going to sink no matter what.

A few days after talking with Morton, I'm sitting on the levee in the French Quarter, enjoying the deep-fried powdery sweetness of a beignet from the Café du Monde. Joggers lumber by in the torpid heat, while tugs wrestle their barges up and down the big brown river. For all its enticing quirkiness, for all its licentious pleasures, for all its geologic challenges, New Orleans has been luckier than the wetlands that lined its pockets and stocked its renowned tables. The question is how long Lady Luck will shine. It brings back something Joe Suhayda, the LSU engineer, had said during our lunch by Lake Pontchartrain.

"When you look at the broadest perspective, short-term advantages can be gained by exploiting the environment. But in the long term you're going to pay for it. Just like you can spend three days drinking in New Orleans and it'll be fun. But sooner or later you're going to pay."
I finish my beignet and stroll down the levee, succumbing to the hazy, lazy feel of the city that care forgot, but that nature will not.
<< Prev (4 of 4)

THE SATANIC BLOODLINES
Introduction
1.1. The Astor Bloodline
2.2. The Bundy Bloodline
3.3. The Collins Bloodline
4.4. The DuPont Bloodline
5.5. The Freeman Bloodline
6 6. The Kennedy Bloodline
7.7. The Li Bloodline
8.8. The Onassis Bloodline
9.9. The Reynolds bloodline
110. The Rockefeller Bloodline
11. The Rothschild Bloodline
12. The Russell Bloodline
13. The Van Duyn Bloodline
[ Merovingian] (European Royal Families)
Interconnected families:
The Disney Bloodline
The Krupp Bloodline
The McDonald Bloodline
Katrina National Georgraphic