Thursday, September 10, 2009

80,000 New Yorkers demand a new investigation into 9/11

NYC CAN News Bulletin – FORWARD WIDELY

September 8, 2009
NYC CAN Submits 28,000 More Signatures To Get Referendum for9/11 Investigation on the November Ballot





DEMAND 9/11 TRUTH NOW ! - 12.160Mhz


On Friday, September 4, the New York City Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN) submitted 28,000 petition signatures as a supplement to the 52,000 signatures submitted on June 24 calling for a citywide referendum on the creation of a local, independent commission to investigate 9/11.


Over the last 25 years, every ballot initiative in New York City has been blocked on grounds of legal technicality, with the exception of the 1993 initiative to establish term limits for NYC elected officials, whose supporters also had to go to court to prove the initiative legal. With 80,000 New Yorkers having signed this petition, the City’s ongoing attempt to stop this referendum from going on the ballot is yet another blatant affront to the democratic ideals upon which this great nation was founded.

On July 24, the NYC City Clerk reported to the City Council that only 26,003 signatures from the submission of 52,000 signatures were valid. In response, NYC CAN filed suit and on Thursday, August 27 submitted a Bill of Particulars cataloguing 7,166 additional signatures that NYC CAN contends should be deemed valid.

The court-appointed referee will begin a line-by-line review of the disputed signatures on Wednesday, September 9, and is scheduled to complete the review by Friday, September 18. If the referee and court accept at least 3,996 of the disputed signatures as valid – meeting the requisite number of 30,000 signatures – and if 15,000 of the 28,000 signatures from the September 4 submission are deemed valid, the only remaining hurdle to getting the referendum on the ballot will be the ongoing court case over the legality of the petition.

The timetable for addressing the petition’s legality will be set in a meeting on Thursday September 10. The schedule should allow time for an appeal from either side in order to guarantee a final determination by the end of the month.

Once the schedule for the court case is set, NYC CAN will announce one or more rallies and events in the second half of September to demonstrate the tremendous public support that exists for a new, impartial investigation. NYC CAN calls upon all those who can be in lower Manhattan to join in solidarity with the 9/11 families, first responders, survivors and 80,000 New Yorkers to say loud and clear: no longer will we tolerate a government that ignores the will of its people. For the 3,000 who died on that day, the hundreds who have died since, and those still suffering today, 9/11 must be properly investigated.

The Bill of Particulars was assembled with the help of 50+ volunteers who gave more than 1,000 hours over a two-week period. On behalf of the petition’s 80,000 signatories, NYC CAN offers its deepest thanks to these volunteers who worked long and hard to prevent the voters New York City from being silenced by their government.

Are the Days of Drudge Over?

Just over a month ago, Linda Douglass, a former ABC News correspondent and current communications director for the Obama administration’s Health Reform Office, appeared in a video posted on the White House’s official blog titled “Facts Are Stubborn Things.”

In the video, the Drudge Report was displayed on one of the computer screens at her desk. Peering over her red-framed glasses, Ms. Douglass read one of the headlines posted on the site: “Uncovered Video: Obama Explains How His Healthcare Plan Will ‘Eliminate’ Private Insurance.”

“Well, nothing can be farther from the truth,” Ms. Douglass said into the camera. “The people who always try to scare people whenever you try to bring them health-insurance reform are at it again. And they’re taking sentences and phrases out of context, and they’re cobbling them together to leave a very false impression.”

Ms. Douglass’ three-minute video was part of the administration’s viral offensive against misconceptions about the president’s health care plan. In that battle, the Drudge Report, Matt Drudge’s news-aggregation site, was Enemy No. 1.

For some, including the White House, the Drudge Report is still an online media powerhouse. The Drudge Report is No. 115 in Quantcast’s list of most popular sites, ranking higher than washingtonpost.com, nypost.com and politico.com. That’s 1.1 million visitors every day, each of whom refresh the page about 15 times in a 24-hour period, according to Quantcast.

But, contrary to what some might think, fewer and fewer of those visitors seem to be the journalists that were once so captivated by Matt Drudge—not to mention his vaguely terror-inducing headlines, taste for the obscure and occasionally spinning siren light. Is it because of increased competition online? Fewer scoops? Or simple Drudge fatigue?

Has Matt Drudge lost his edge?

“Obviously, when Drudge started in the ’90s, he was a kind of phenomenon,” said Peter Baker, who was the Washington Post’s White House correspondent during the Clinton years. “He invented this whole new way of getting information out there, and he changed the landscape of what the mainstream media did. Everyone was on Drudge, checking him every day.”

Even when the Drudge Report’s stories were sensationalized or unfounded, the urge to keep clicking was irresistible. “There was something very titillating about it because he didn’t have the same kind of limitations or standards that the old-style, I guess, media did,” he said.

“Today, Drudge is still a force,” continued Mr. Baker, who now covers the White House for The New York Times. “He’s just not the only one. He still can propel a story. He can still get people talking about something. But he doesn’t have a monopoly on it anymore.”

Mr. Baker hears less and less from coworkers and colleagues, “Did you see what’s on Drudge?”

Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times, concurred.

“Your email is the first time anyone—staff, reader, anyone—has mentioned Drudge to me in ages,” he replied via email. “During the campaign it sometimes served to stir the embers of right-wing indignation against The Times, usually by printing a cockeyed version of something we were supposedly about to publish,” he said.

“It’s probably been a year since I looked at the Drudge report, or felt its impact in any way,” Mr. Keller added.

Jonathan Weisman, who covers the Obama administration for The Wall Street Journal, seemed to back up that idea. “Matt Drudge has no influence whatsoever,” he said. “When Drudge picks up one of our stories, it’s incredible. It lights up the boards; all of a sudden, it’s the most linked-to story on the Web site.” Yet the uptick in clicks doesn’t really register as success—it’s almost like a bubble. When his editor notes that a story has crazy traffic on The Journal’s site, Mr. Weisman shrugs. “I’m like, ‘Eh, it’s because it was linked on Drudge,’” he said.

In terms of looking for scoops or insider news on his own beat, Mr. Weisman looks elsewhere. “I’ll actually go to the Huffington Post to see if they’re floating something,” he said.

The Huffington Post, launched in May 2005 as a kind of liberal-aggregator answer to the seemingly conservative-leaning site, actually beat Drudge in unique visitors for the first time in February 2008, “and never looked back,” emailed Thomas Edsall, the site’s political editor. “I don’t check [Drudge] to speak of. He has not broken many stories and his web site has not been updated to become more attractive by making use of graphics or other multi-media forms of communication.”

That’s an understatement! Certainly, Drudge hasn’t changed its three-column, Courier-fonted, photo-light format.

But, perhaps, now that Politico, the Huffington Post and even Twitter users are seemingly live-blogging, video recording and photographing every political move, Drudge’s lo-fi needling is less dazzling. Other sites like Talking Points Memo cover some of the political obscurities that were Drudge’s bread and butter—and add their own commentaries, photo displays and enriched data. Today, especially for members of the media who have become increasingly tech-savvy as their jobs have demanded it, less may no longer be more.

As Mr. Drudge retreats to sunny landscapes like Tel Aviv, Geneva and Las Vegas, some reporters that spoke to The Observer wondered if he would soon leave behind the dark world of Washington for good. Several reporters and editors who previously touted Mr. Drudge’s influence in profiles and books replied that they had “no comment” or did not return several phone calls by deadline.

Mr. Baker, The Times’ White House correspondent, warned not to underestimate Mr. Drudge. “His original content aggregation is still important,” he said. “He has a really interesting news sense and he doesn’t pick out stories the same way that The New York Times or The Washington Post would. They are captivating in their own way.”

Still, Mr. Keller was willing to float a theory about Mr. Drudge’s waning influence. “Maybe he wasn’t the phenomenon trend-watchers thought,” Mr. Keller said. “Maybe he was just a fad—digital-age hula hoop.”

Sounds fun! For a while, at least.

By Gillian Reagan

Israeli Wiretappers, the NSA, and 9/11

9/11 Blogger
January 5, 2008

(James Bamford has done another great deed for the public by revealing the extent of the NSA’s wiretapping on U.S. soil, and how the NSA sub-contracts the vast majority of its work to Israeli high-tech firms bristling with “former” Israeli military intelligence agents, and in the case of Verint, a company with serious corruption issues. It was Bamford who popularized the existence of Operation Northwoods in his 2001 book, Body of Secrets. In The Shadow Factory, he sheds light in the secret rooms of Verizon and AT&T, and shows the NSA to be a very poor custodian of the nation’s security.)

Bamford Brings the Goods

On October 14, 2008, James Bamford talked about some of the shocking research in his new book on Democracy Now!, with Amy Goodman;

(Continued below the fold…)

Along with the mass surveillance being conducted on all U.S. users of AT&T and Verizon by Narus and Verint, (according to Bamford), two other Israeli-owned companies, Amdocs and NICE Systems, have their fingers in the wiretapping pie as well.

Christopher Ketcham preceded Bamford in September, with with the article “Trojan Horse”, that focuses on Verint, Amdocs, and CALEA (the legislation which brought all of these problems into existence);

“Together, Verint and Amdocs form part of the backbone of the government’s domestic intelligence surveillance technology. Both companies are based in Israel – having arisen to prominence from that country’s cornering of the information technology market – and are heavily funded by the Israeli government, with connections to the Israeli military and Israeli intelligence (both companies have a long history of board memberships dominated by current and former Israeli military and intelligence officers). Verint is considered the world leader in “electronic interception” and hence an ideal private sector candidate for wiretap outsourcing. Amdocs is the world’s largest billing service for telecommunications, with some $2.8 billion in revenues in 2007, offices worldwide, and clients that include the top 25 phone companies in the United States that together handle 90 percent of all call traffic among US residents. The companies’ operations, sources suggest, have been infiltrated by freelance spies exploiting encrypted trapdoors in Verint/Amdocs technology and gathering data on Americans for transfer to Israeli intelligence and other willing customers (particularly organized crime)…

None of US law enforcement’s problems with Amdocs and Verint could have come to pass without the changes mandated by the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which, as noted, sought to lock spyware into telecom networks. CALEA, to cite the literature, requires that terrestrial carriers, cellular phone services and other telecom entities enable the government to intercept “all wire and oral communications carried by the carrier concurrently with their transmission.”

If Ketcham and Bamford are correct, (so far, no lawsuits), then the National “Security” Agency has thrown the “National Security” of the United States under the bus.

Amdocs and NICE

The two companies that should be getting extra scrutiny from 9/11 researchers are Amdocs, and NICE Systems. Both have direct links to 9/11 via the milieu known as the “Israeli DEA Groups”. To date, the best report on the DEA Groups was assembled by retired international lawyer, Gerald Shea; you can download the report from Antiwar.com.

I consider Shea’s report the best so far, because it is high on content, and low on speculation, and, it names names. The content is damning. Consider the following graph from Shea which places the DEA Groups in the same general vicinity as the alleged 9/11 hijackers, in the time period running up to 9/11;
september 11   Israeli Wiretappers, the NSA, and 9/11
Shea notes the Amdocs and NICE connections in his report;

“Tomer Ben Dor (mentioned above), another Israeli of interest to the DEA, was an employee of Nice-Systems Ltd., an Israeli company specializing in systems and solutions for detecting, locating, monitoring, evaluating and analyzing voice communications and other transmissions from a variety of sources–activities commonly known as wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping. Nice-Systems’ U.S. subsidiary, Nice Systems Inc., is located in Rutherford, New Jersey, adjacent to East Rutherford where five members of the Israeli New Jersey group were arrested on September 11. When Mr. Ben Dor was interrogated by the INS at the DFW Airport in May 2001, an inspection of his bags revealed a printout containing a reference to a file entitled “DEA Groups.”

One member of the Israeli DEA Groups, Michal Gal, who was arrested in Irving, Texas,18 was released on a $10,000 cash bond posted by Ophir Baer, an employee of Amdocs, Inc. an Israeli telecommunications firm with operations in the United States. The Amdocs employee described Mr. Gal as a “relative”.

Shea makes a distinction between the DEA Groups, and the New Jersey Group detained on 9/11, where two of the 5 Israelis arrested were later identified as Mossad agents. The Mossad connection was discussed on Democracy Now! in February of 2007;

Shea on the Mossad connection, and some more on Nice systems;

“The vans in the operations of both Israeli Groups were able to move about neighborhoods without raising undue concern. The “art students” in the Israeli DEA Groups were using their vans as sometime door-to-door salesmen. The personnel of Urban Moving Systems, the Mossad front, were ostensibly driving about northeastern New Jersey towns in their van (or vans) to help people move—a familiar suburban sight.

With ample room for personnel and electronic equipment, the vans were ideal vehicles for electronic eavesdropping. The extent to which Nice Systems, the Israeli wiretapping company for which Tomer Ben Dor worked (the Israeli with the reference to “DEA Groups” in his computer files) will be a matter for the public inquiry. Nice Systems was ideally suited to provide equipment and expertise to the Israeli New Jersey Group because its U.S. headquarters were located in Rutherford, New Jersey, near the center of the Group’s operations.

James Bamford was introduced to NICE Systems at the 2006 Intelligence Support System World Conference or informally… the Wiretappers’ Ball, held in Crystal City, along the Potomac. Bamford writes;

“The large Israeli firm NICE, like Verint and Narus, is also a major eavesdropper in the U.S., and like the other two, it keeps its government and commercial client list very secret. A key member of the Wiretappers’ Ball, it was formed in 1986 by seven veterans of Unit 8200, according to the company’s founder, Benny Levin. “We were seven people from the Unit,” he said, “we all worked on a project for more than four years, we knew each other very well. We had very good complementary skills.” Like a page out of Orwell, all their high-tech bugging systems are called “Nice”. Nice Perform, for example, “provides voice content analysis with features such as: word spotting, emotion detection, talk pattern analysis, and state-of-the-art visualization techniques.” Nice Universe “captures voice, email, chat, screen activity, and essential call details.” Nice Log offers “audio compression technology that performs continuous recordings of up to thousands of analog and digital telephone lines and radio channels.” And Nice VoIP “can use both packet sniffing and active recording methods for recording VoIP sessions (both by telephone and internet).”*

“Former” Israeli military intelligence personnel are scattered throughout the high-tech wiretapping industry. And this fact, (along with Bamford’s new book), prompted Israeli journalist Yossi Melman to ask this rhetorical question in Haaretz, “Is Israel’s booming high-tech industry a branch of the Mossad?”.

NSA Domestic Spying Began Before 9/11

The NSA’s domestic spying operation began no later than February, 2001;

“Within eleven (11) days of the onset of the Bush administration, and at least seven (7) months prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, defendant ATT began development of a center for monitoring long distance calls and internet transmissions and other digital information for the exclusive use of the NSA.

The center was put into development by ATT following a proposal by the NSA for the construction and development of a network operations center identical to ATT’s own network operations center located in Bedminster, New Jersey for the exclusive use of the NSA.

The NSA proposal was accepted by the ATT sales division and referred to ATT Solutions, an ATT project development division situated in Florham Park, New Jersey

Said data center would enable the NSA to tap into any phone line and to monitor any digital transfer of information on ATT’s networks including voice telephone calls, facsimile transmission and all internet traffic.”

The NSA’s early 2001 involvement with expanded domestic wiretapping is confirmed by the former CEO of Qwest;

“Defendant Joseph P. Nacchio … respectfully renews his objection to the Court’s rulings excluding testimony surrounding his February 27, 2001 meeting at Ft. Meade with representatives from the National Security Agency (NSA) as violative of his constitutional right to mount a defense. Although Mr. Nacchio is allowed to tell the jury that he and James Payne went into that meeting expecting to talk about the “Groundbreaker” project and came out of the meeting with optimism about the prospect for 2001 revenue from NSA, the Court has prohibited Mr. Nacchio from eliciting testimony regarding what also occurred at that meeting. [REDACTED] The Court has also refused to allow Mr. Nacchio to demonstrate that the agency retaliated for this refusal by denying the Groundbreaker and perhaps other work to Qwest.

By being prevented from telling his full story to the jury or from fully and properly cross-examining any rebuttal witnesses, Mr. Nacchio has been deprived of the ability to explaoin why – after he came out of the February meeting with a reasonable, good faith, expectation that Qwest would be receiving significant contracts from NSA in 2001 … Qwest was denied significant work…

There was a feeling also, that the NSA acted as agents for other government agencies and if Qwest frustrated the NSA, they would also frustrate other agencies.

As this clip featuring Bamford on Charlie Rose shows (1984), the CIA and the U.S. intelligence community in general would be the “other agencies” in question;

The DEA began to receive reports about the Israelis in January of 2001, with peak activity by the Groups occurring in February and March of 2001;

“In January, 2001, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Office of Security Programs (IS), began to receive reports of Israeli art students attempting to penetrate several DEA Field Offices in the continental United States. Additionally, there have been reports of Israeli art students visiting the homes of numerous DEA employees. These incidents have occurred since at least the beginning of 2000, and have continued to the present. The number of reported incidents increased in November/December 2000, and has continued to date. These incidents have involved several other law enforcement and Department of Defense agencies, with contacts made at other agencies’ facilities and the residences of their employees. Geographically, these incidents are very widespread, ranging from California to Florida. The majority of the incidents have occurred in the southern half of the continental U.S. with the most activity reported in the state of Florida. Since April 2001, the number of reported incidents has declined, however, the geographic spread of the incidents has increased to Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Los Angeles.

The activities of these Israeli art students raised the suspicion of IS and other field offices when attempts were made to circumvent the access control systems at DEA offices, and when these individuals began to solicit their paintings at the homes of DEA employees. The nature of the individuals’ conduct, combined with intelligence information and historical information regarding past incidents involving Israeli Organized Crime, leads IS to believe the incidents may well be an organized intelligence gathering activity. It is believed by IS that these incidents should not be the basis for any immediate concern for the safety and security of DEA personnel, however, employees should continue to exercise due caution in safeguarding information relating to DEA investigations, or activities…

In general, these individuals appear to be organized in teams of 8 to 10 people, with one person described as the “Team Leader”. They are usually encountered in pairs or individually carrying a makeshift art portfolio. Several times, they have, been seen or admitted to being dropped off in an area by the Team Leader, who returns later to pick them up. The females are usually described as very attractive, and all are generally in their early to mid-20s. Most admit to having served in the Israeli Military. This is not surprising given the mandatory military service require in Israel, however, a majority of those questioned has stated they served in military intelligence, electronic signal intercept, or explosive ordinance units. Some have been linked to high-ranking officials in the Israeli military. One was the son of a two-star general, one served as the bodyguard to the head of the Israeli Army, one served in a Patriot missile unit. That these people are now traveling in the U.S. selling art seems not to fit their background.

Their stories are remarkable only in their consistency. At first, they will state that they are art students, either from the University of Jerusalem, or the Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem. Other times they will purport to be promoting a new art studio in the area. When pressed for details as to the location of the art studio or why they are selling the paintings, they become evasive. Some claim to be the artist who painted the artwork, others claim they promoting the work of others or of Israel. Information has been received which indicates the art is actually produced in China. When told that they cannot solicit on federal facilities, they will claim that the paintings are not for sale, but that they are soliciting interest in the paintings, either for an art studio or for a future art sale…

When encountered at residences, some of these individuals are persistent in trying to get inside the home. Some have asked to use the telephone when leaving. Some employees have reported that they came only to their house, while others have reported that the students approached the entire neighborhood.”

Questions, again…

Why is NONE of this information in the 9/11 Commission Final Report?

Did the NSA sub-contract NICE Systems and other Israeli wiretappers to monitor the alleged 9/11 hijackers? And does this in turn explain why the Israelis were simply deported for “immigration” violations?

How could the Israelis be in such uncanny proximity with the alleged hijackers without MASSIVE foreknowledge of their plans, identities, and locations?

Is possible collusion between NSA and the Israelis only the tip of the iceberg?** And will further digging reveal operational relationships between the Israelis and other U.S. intelligence services or Private Military Contractors (PMCs)?

Is the “Wiretappers” story merely very complex cover for the actual activities of the Israelis, including far more destructive uses of moving vans?

Or, are stories about explosives being linked to the Urban Moving Systems vans clever disinfo to lead away from HUMINT and SIGINT being conducted by the Israelis?

Were the Israelis merely shepherds, keeping an eye on U.S. intel assets, assets that had been tagged for a future activity?

If the Israelis are our friends… why didn’t they stop the hijackers?

Perhaps the quote attributed to one of the New Jersey Israelis explains it best (see Shea’s memo);

“We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem.”

China's mass swine flu vaccination

China is to become the first country in the world to start a mass swine flu vaccination programme for its population following a big surge in the number of cases.

No one's died yet from the virus in China but the authorities there describe the situation as 'grim'.

The big rise coincides with the start of the school year and the approaching winter.

Quentin Somerville reports.

Seriousness of the Crisis Cannot be Exaggerated; Closest Comparison is the Collapse of the Soviet Union

Ron Paul on the Glen Beck Show September 7, 2009 discusses the changes going on with the entire US economic system. Also take note of what George Soros said at Columbia University last Friday and threat to the United States of America as we know it today. Gerald Celente has said that we are about to experience a scenario “like nothing we’ve ever seen in our life time“, and Ron Paul and George Soros seem to agree. This is far from being over, folks.

New Footage of WTC 7 and North Tower Collapse

This footage of the WTC 7 and North Tower collapse recently appeared on YouTube. Note the vertical column of windows blown out just before the collapse on WTC 7. As one commenter noted, the camera man was involved. He knew exactly where to focus and film.



Air passengers face massive new green taxes to put people off flying

Dramatic new flight taxes should be brought in to put people off flying, a Government advisory committee has warned.

Tens of billions of pounds in taxes will be needed to compensate third world countries for damage to the environment, the Committee on Climate Change said.

It is also expected to challenge the Government's decision to approve a third runway at Heathrow, saying it is inconsistent with Britain's commitment to reduce emissions by 80 per cent before 2050.

Soaring fares: Air fares could be the latest to rise in a new green tax

Soaring fares: Air fares could be the latest to rise in a new green tax

In a report leaked to The Times, the committee argued that ticket prices should rise steadily over time as airlines are made to pay for all their emissions.

A global cap on aviation emissions would help to generate money to help developing countries to adapt to climate change using methods such as flood defences to cope with rising sea levels, the report said.

The EU emissions trading scheme is already set to add an average of £10 a ticket from 2012.

Under the committee's new proposals, a return trip from London to Madrid could increase by £10 while flying from London to Los Angeles and back could cost an extra £40.

The committee, which was set up under the Climate Change Act last year, said airlines should be forced to share the burden of meeting Britain's commitment to reduce emissions.

David Kennedy, the committee's chief executive, said: 'A global scheme could raise tens of billions of pounds a year. You can still go on holiday abroad but there isn’t going to be room for massive increases in flying.'

He added: 'It wasn’t specified in our terms of reference but we could take it upon ourselves to talk about Heathrow in our UK aviation review.”'

The revelations will come as further bad news for the aviation industry, which has been hit by a meltdown during the recession, as air cargo traffic decreased and passenger numbers fell.

Holidaymakers have dealt with the hidden costs of air travel, as budget airlines have brought in new charges for baggage and check-in.

A spokesman from the Department of Energy and Climate Change said last night: 'The Government welcomes the Climate Change Committee's advice on this critical issue.

'We will take full account of the Committee's independent advice as we continue to press for international aviation to tackle climate change at Copenhagen.'

By Fay Schlesinger

Democracy or Republic ?

America is not a pure Democracy !!

Let's say it together now:

    "I pledge alliegance, to the flag, of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands .... "

The children don't say this Pledge of Alliegance in school anymore because it directly contradicts the government propaganda in an irrefutable fashion.

Furthermore, the Constitution itself guarantees a "republican form of geovernment", at Article 4 Section 4, it states: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,"

America is a Republic, a constitutional Republic of a democratic (one man - one vote) nature. However, we are not a democracy where the majority rules. That is government propaganda designed to condition you to accept their injustice and believe that there is nothing that you can do about it. The difference between a Democracy and a Republic is that in a Republic there are certain things that can never be done no matter how many people want to do it ! The rights of no individual or group can ever be removed or diminished (because that group may be currently unpopular (for whatever reason)), regardless of how many people vote to do so. In a Republic, even if the vote is 250 million to 1, that one cannot be thrown into slavery. In a pure democracy 51% of the men can vote the other 49% back into slavery if they wish. Or, they can vote to steal your property (sound familiar), but not in a Republic (if the Constitution or the law forbids it, which ours DOES). Our founding fathers hated democracy, recognizing that it is nothing more than social slavery to the poular hysteria of the masses (sound familiar). They wanted a representative (democratic) system, but not a pure democracy, and they did not establish a democracy in the Constitution, they established a Republic, a Constitutional Republic.

Things like "majority rules" and "fair share" are communistic concepts right out of The Communist Manifesto and from the communist maxims like "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need", attempting to justify the theft of private property by government under the pretense of "redistribution to the poor" and "efficient utilization of national resources". But for some reason the stolen wealth never seems to make it to the poor, but instead always ends up in the pockets of the party leaders and bureaucrats ! I won't even mention how efficient the Communist regimes of the world have shown themselves to be with their national resources.

Life is really very simple. People like to pretend that it is not, but it is. You have two choices in life: you can accept what you find, or you can work to change what you find into something better. You can stand up and fight, or you can lie down and die. Fail to do the one, and the other becomes inevitable. You choose for yourself,

    "The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave, ... It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen cry peace, peace - but there is no peace. The war is actually begun ! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms ! Our brethren are already in the field ! Why stand we here idle ? What is it that gentlemen wish ? What would they have ? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it, Almighty God ! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death !" Patrick Henry

Collective hysteria, paranoia and insanity are the planned result of Government propaganda, issued under the pretense of "protecting the children", in order to effect rule by Government Anarchy (outside the law), without protest from the people. Their propaganda has been very effective here in America, wouldn't you agree ? Fortunately, like ALL government propaganda; none of it is true, and surely any government's claim to be acting to protect the children is exposed as pure fraud when that same government actually repeatedly murders its own people's children (Waco & Ruby Ridge).

THE POLITICAL DIFFERENCE

DEMOCRATLIBERTARIANREPUBLICAN
LIBERALMORALCONSERVATIVE
BIG GOVERNMENTHUMAN BEINGSBIG BUSINESS
WELFARE STATEFREE STATEWARFARE STATE
DEPARTMENTSRIGHTSINSTITUTIONS
SOCIALISMLIBERTYFASCISM
NO PRIVACYYOUR PRIVACYTHEIR PRIVACY
WELFARECHARITYGREED
REGULATIONCOOPERATIONCONFISCATION
UNREALISTIC LAWCONSTITUTIONAL LAWEXISTING LAW
NO MORALITYYOUR MORALITYTHEIR MORALITY
NO RELIGIONYOUR RELIGIONTHEIR RELIGION
MORE PAPER MONEYSOUND MONEYPAPER MONEY
THE PRINTING PRESSGOLD & SILVERTHE PRIVATE MONOPOLY
TAX THE RICHTAX CONSUMPTIONTAX THE MIDDLE CLASS
MAN IS THE ENEMYLIES ARE THE ENEMYNATURE IS THE ENEMY
REDISTRUTIONSHARINGHOARDING
"PASS THE CASH""FREE TO CHOOSE""LET THEM EAT CAKE"
METHADONETAX THEMPRISON
KARL MARXTHOMAS JEFFERSONMUSSOLINI
JOSEPH STALINGEORGE WASHINGTONADOLF HITLER
GOVERNMENT ANARCHYCONSITUTIONAL REPUBLICPRIVATE OLIGARCHY
SUBSIDIESTOLERANCEINTOLERANCE
LEFTADVANCEDRIGHT
POLITICAL ELITESNO ELITESRICH ELITES
BANKSFARMERSBUSINESSES
BORROWINGSAVINGSPENDING
GOVERNMENT ABORTIONSPERSONAL PROBLEMNO ABORTIONS
REGULATED MARKETFREE MARKETPRIVATE MARKET
TOTALITARIANLIBERTARIANAUTHORITARIAN
BUREAUCRACYINDIVIDUALSARISTOCRACY

Should We Call It a Depression?

The “official” unemployment rate is around 10 percent. The media blew up in outrage when it was that high during the first year of the Reagan administration, but is now calling it a “recovery.” Fed official Dennis Lockhart recently stated that if people who have simply given up on finding a job (“discouraged workers” in governmentspeak) are counted, the actual unemployment rate is more like 16 percent. That would be comparable to the unemployment rate in Depression years 1931 (15.9%), 1936 (16.9%), 1937 (14.3%), and 1940 (14.6%).

Moreover, government miscalculated the unemployment rate during the Depression years by counting many government make-work employees as unemployed. As a result, economists think the unemployment rate might have been exaggerated by as much as 5 percentage points. That would make the 1940 Depression unemployment rate almost exactly what it is today, without counting the “discouraged workers.”

Fascist F*cks

The federal gubmint wants to impose universal "health care" because it cares about you. It cares so much that it will rob you at the point of a gun -- i.e., it will violently relieve you of your property (your money, and perhaps even your life) -- if you politely refuse its "services."

Yes, folks, the state wants to force health insurance on everyone because it simply wants to help. Not because its cronies in the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies stand to make many more billions because of it. Or because politicians will then have a good excuse to micromanage every single thing you attempt to put into your body. Or because this new plan masquerading as universal "care" is really a plan for universal control over anyone not associated with the power elite.

If Americans insist on being imps instead of living independently, we might as well get used to one of the best movie quotes of all-time:

Now, you will go to sleep! Or I will PUT you to sleep. Check out the name tag. You're in MY world now, Grandma!

-- Hal L., Happy Gilmore

McClatchy Announces Financial New World Order

WASHINGTON — One year after the near collapse of the global financial system, this much is clear: The financial world as we knew it is over, and something new is rising from its ashes.

Historians will look to September 2008 as a watershed for the U.S. economy.

On Sept. 7 , the government seized mortgage titans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac . Eight days later, investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, sparking a global financial panic that threatened to topple blue-chip financial institutions around the world. In the several months that followed, governments from Washington to Beijing responded with unprecedented intervention into financial markets and across their economies, seeking to stop the wreckage and stem the damage.

One year later, the easy-money system that financed the boom era from the 1980s until a year ago is smashed. Once-ravenous U.S. consumers are saving money and paying down debt. Banks are building reserves and hoarding cash. And governments are fashioning a new global financial order.

Congress and the Obama administration have lost faith in self-regulated markets. Together, they’re writing the most sweeping new regulations over finance since the Great Depression. And in this ever-more-connected global economy, Washington is working with its partners through the G-20 group of nations to develop worldwide rules to govern finance.

Conspiracy theory or hidden truth? The 9/11 enigmas...

Richard Gage, AIA, Gregg Roberts, and David Chandler

Richard Gage, AIA has been a practicing San Francisco Bay Area architect for more than 20 years, and is a registered member of the American Institute of Architects. Most recently he worked on a $400M mixed-use facility in Las Vegas NV. But he is also the founder and CEO of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, now numbering over 800 A/E’s, calling for a new investigation into the destruction of all 3 WTC high-rises on 9/11. Gage has spoken at over 100 events, reaching 20 U.S. states and 8 countries. He has been invited to present in 14 cities Australia, New Zealand, and Japan before the end of this year. As the anniversary of the events approaches, Gage tells WAN why he thinks there are hidden depths to the destruction of the World Trade Centre...

In all likelihood, you are unaware of the most important facts involving the destructions of the World Trade Center buildings. Nearly all the mainstream information sources and government officials have kept crucial information hidden from the public. This brief article will provide a clear explanation as to what actually happened to the Twin Towers and Building 7 (WTC 7) on September 11, 2001.

Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth) is a non-partisan, non-profit organization now numbering over 800 technical professionals and thousands of other supporters dedicated to exposing the facts that point to the explosive destruction of all three World Trade Center (WTC) high-rises.

We are calling for a new independent investigation empowered to subpoena and question witnesses under oath. Well-documented facts prove the WTC high-rises were destroyed by explosives. The implications are grave, but we ask that you look at the facts. AE911Truth is also concerned that evidence has been distorted and covered up by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the federal agency assigned to investigate the building collapses.

World Trade Center – Building 7


47-storey WTC 7 before destruction

WTC 7 was a 47-story steel-framed high-rise 100 yards from the North Tower. Even though no airplane hit it, it collapsed rapidly and totally on 9/11, in the manner of a controlled demolition. Despite its suspicious collapse, the 9/11 Commission report does not even mention WTC 7. NIST left its analysis of the WTC 7 collapse until 2008, seven years after the events, long after all the rubble was destroyed. NIST claims WTC 7 collapsed due to “normal office fires” which created a “new phenomenon” in high-rise catastrophes: collapse caused by thermal expansion of beams. NIST claims this caused the failure of a single column – the rest just followed.


Free-fall acceleration through 40,000 tons of structural steel?

NIST Forced to Acknowledge Free-Fall of WTC 7

In August 2008, NIST released the draft of its final report on Building 7. In that draft NIST claims that the building took 40% longer than "free-fall time" to collapse the first 18 stories. In a technical briefing that followed the release of the draft report Shyam Sunder, NIST’s lead investigator, denied that free-fall had occurred and stated that free-fall was incompatible with their analysis. He

said, “… a free fall time would be an object that has no … structural components below it...And that is not at all unusual because there was [emphasis in original] structural resistance that was provided in this particular case. And you had … a sequence of structural failures that had to take place and everything was not instantaneous.”

However, one of this article’s co-authors, David Chandler, used video analysis to show conclusively that for 2.5 seconds (about 100 feet) WTC 7 was in complete free-fall. He publicly challenged NIST’s claims at the technical briefing and he, along with others, filed formal requests for corrections.

NIST were forced to reverse themselves in their Final Report and acknowledged 2.25 seconds of absolute free-fall. Yet they did not reconsider how this was compatible with their analysis. A network of heavy steel girders had to be forcibly removed suddenly across the width of the building for eight floors. However, a free-falling object cannot exert force on anything in its path without slowing its own fall, so the structural support had to be removed by something else—explosives. The free-fall of Building 7 is a smoking gun.

World Trade Center – Commonalities in all Three Building Destructions

Complete Destruction Through the Path of Greatest Resistance

NIST claims that the Twin Towers collapsed due to the plane impacts and fire, and that WTC 7 collapsed due to fire alone. However, note that the Twin Towers survived the plane impacts and the jet fuel burned off in the first 10 minutes. Beyond that, all we have are not very large office fires. Over 100 steel framed buildings have suffered major fires, many much worse, yet none have collapsed. All three buildings on 9/11 fell through what should have been the path of greatest resistance – thousands of tons of steel – resulting in total dismemberment. This would require precisely timed removal of critical columns, which office fires cannot accomplish. Furthermore, a small falling top section would destroy itself before it could destroy a larger, stronger, undamaged lower section of the building. The impossible collapse is a smoking gun.

Molten Iron

The temperatures of the fires present a problem for NIST's claim that fire alone was involved. The melting point of steel is about 2800° F. According to NIST's own documents, hydrocarbon fires (e.g., jet fuel and office furnishings) generate temperatures only up to about 2,000° F under ideal conditions. NIST recognizes these fires could not melt steel, so they had to postulate elaborate mechanisms that might trigger collapse due to weakened columns and sagging girders.

Yet there is widespread evidence of molten iron in the rubble piles. Photos and numerous witnesses -- including fire fighters, cleanup crews, and structural engineers -- confirm the existence of several tons of molten metal under the debris. Some fire fighters described molten steel flowing like lava. Photos clearly reveal molten metal dripping as material is being lifted by excavation equipment.


Office fires are not hot enough to create the molten metal seen by dozens of witness

A video of the South Tower shows molten metal pouring out, glowing a radiant orange-yellow. Some have claimed this is molten aluminum, which melts at a lower temperature, but molten aluminum would be silvery in these conditions. This is molten iron or steel.


Jet fuel and office fires can’t create molten iron

At least three independent laboratory analyses of the dust that blanketed Lower Manhattan after the destruction of the Twin Towers reveal the presence of iron-rich “microspheres.” These spheres are formed when molten iron is sprayed into the air and forms droplets that cool before hitting the ground. The iron droplets indicate temperatures during the collapses much higher than hydrocarbon fires, in an explosive environment that could spray many tons of these

droplets into the air.


Billions of previously molten iron spheres found in all WTC dust samples

In April 2002, the RJ Lee Company was hired to investigate environmental contaminants in the Deutsche Bank, across the street from the World Trade Center. It reports, “Many of the materials, such as lead, cadmium, mercury and various organic compounds, vaporized and then condensed during the WTC Event.” The problem here is that lead vaporizes at 3200° F, some 1200° F hotter than is possible in hydrocarbon fires. A study of the WTC dust by the USGS for the EPA observed molybdenum-rich spheres that can form only above 4750° F. The high temperatures are another smoking gun.

Unignited Nano-Thermite in the WTC Dust

NIST did not even look for physical evidence of explosives. In fact NIST did not look at the physical evidence at all, apart from a few selected samples of the steel. The rest was destroyed. However, physical evidence did remain: the dust. NIST did not look at the dust, but independent investigators did. They discovered, along with the microspheres, tiny red-grey chips. They examined samples of WTC dust from different parts of Manhattan. All contained the red-gray chips. They found that the red layer consisted of unignited nano-thermite. Ordinary thermite is an incendiary: it can burn through heavy steel in seconds. The tiny particles in nano-thermite (1/1000 the thickness of a human hair) causes a much faster reaction so it can be used as a high explosive. The discovery of nano-thermite in the WTC dust was published in The Open Chemical Physics Journal in April 2009.


Hundreds of Red/Grey chips of “Unignited thermite” in every WTC Dust sample


Nano-thermite particle sizes are 1,000 times smaller than a human hair. This material is not made in a cave in Afghanistan.

These scientists found not just a smoking gun, but a loaded gun.

Independent lines of evidence prove the official government claims are impossible. We see our role at AE911Truth as exposing the evidence official agencies and the corporate media are covering up. Following up on the implications is the responsibility of every citizen. Every citizen must face his or her own conscience when confronting these difficult facts -- especially when we consider that 9/11 is the foundation for two wars, the launching of an endless "war on terror," and the loss of our freedoms due to legislation pushed through amid the fog of war.

Following Up on the Evidence

Here are some starting points for action:

a) Send the AE911Truth.org link to your personal mailing list and every architect and engineer that you can find.
b) Sign the petition and demand a new, independent investigation. Volunteer. Become a sustaining donor.
c) Write your local news media and representatives. Tell them to address the evidence. Send them the DVD, “9/11: Blueprint for Truth.”

A video of initiation of explosive destruction is here for WTC 1 (North Tower) and here for WTC 2 (South Tower).

Editorial , London

Secret FDA Memos Reveal Concerns About Genetically Modified Foods (GMOs)

PLEASE READ:

Jeffrey Smith's article:
You're Appointing Who? Please Obama, Say It's Not So!

SOURCES & MORE RESOURCES:

What are GMOs? (Wikipedia)

Non-GMO Shopping Guide (PDF)

How to Avoid GMOs in Restaurants

17 Ways to Avoid GMO Food

GreenMuze: How to Avoid GMOs

Aaron's Environmental: Organic Certifications, Labels, and What They Mean

Top 5 Ways to Avoid GMOs in Your Food

Fox News Kills Monsanto Milk Story

The World According to Monsanto

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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

TAKE ACTION:

Take the No-GMO Challenge

Take the "Replace Roundup" Challenge and help divert millions in revenue from Monsanto!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The current broken food system exists only through our economic participation... so let's vote with our wallets!

A year after financial crisis, the consumer economy is dead

WASHINGTON — One year after the near collapse of the global financial system, this much is clear: The financial world as we knew it is over, and something new is rising from its ashes.

Historians will look to September 2008 as a watershed for the U.S. economy.

On Sept. 7, the government seized mortgage titans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Eight days later, investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, sparking a global financial panic that threatened to topple blue-chip financial institutions around the world. In the several months that followed, governments from Washington to Beijing responded with unprecedented intervention into financial markets and across their economies, seeking to stop the wreckage and stem the damage.

One year later, the easy-money system that financed the boom era from the 1980s until a year ago is smashed. Once-ravenous U.S. consumers are saving money and paying down debt. Banks are building reserves and hoarding cash. And governments are fashioning a new global financial order.

Congress and the Obama administration have lost faith in self-regulated markets. Together, they're writing the most sweeping new regulations over finance since the Great Depression. And in this ever-more-connected global economy, Washington is working with its partners through the G-20 group of nations to develop worldwide rules to govern finance.

"Our objective is to design an economic framework where we're going to have a more balanced pattern of growth globally, less reliant on a buildup of unsustainable borrowing . . . and not just here, but around the world," said Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

The first faint signs that the U.S. economy may be clawing its way back from the worst recession since the Great Depression are only now starting to appear, a year after the panic began. Similar indications are sprouting in Europe, China and Japan.

Still, economists concur that a quarter-century of economic growth fueled by cheap credit is over. Many analysts also think that an extended period of slow job growth and suppressed wage growth will keep consumers — and the businesses that sell to them — in the dumps for years.

"Those things are likely to be subpar for a long period of time," said Martin Regalia, the chief economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "I think it means that we probably see potential rates of growth that are in the 2-2.5 (percent) range, or maybe . . . 1.8-1.9 (percent)." A growth rate of 3 percent to 3.5 percent is considered average.

The unemployment rate rose to 9.7 percent in August and is expected to peak above 10 percent in the months ahead. It's already there in at least 15 states. Regalia thinks that it could be five years before the U.S. economy generates enough jobs to overcome those lost and to employ the new workers entering the labor force.

All this is likely to keep consumers on the sidelines.

"I think this financial panic and Great Recession is an inflection point for the financial system and the economy," said Mark Zandi, the chief economist for forecaster Moody's Economy.com. "It means much less risk-taking, at least for a number of years to come — a decade or two. That will be evident in less credit and more costly credit. If you are a household or a business, it will cost you more, and it will be more difficult to get that credit."

The numbers bear him out. The Fed's most recent release of credit data showed that consumer credit decreased at an annual rate of 5.2 percent from April to June, after falling by a 3.6 percent annual rate from January to March. Revolving lines of credit, which include credit cards, fell by an annualized 8.9 percent in the first quarter, followed by an 8.2 percent drop in the second quarter.

That's a sea change. For much of the past two decades, strong U.S. growth has come largely through expanding credit. The global economy fed off this trend.

China became a manufacturing hub by selling attractively priced exports to U.S. consumers who were living beyond their means. China's Asian neighbors sent it components for final assembly; Africa and Latin America sold China their raw materials. All fed off U.S. consumers' bottomless appetite for more, bought on credit.

"That's over. Consumers can do their part — spend at a rate consistent with their income growth, but not much beyond that," Zandi said.

If U.S. consumers no longer drive the global economy, then consumers in big emerging economies such as China and Brazil will have to take up some of the slack. Trade among nations will take on greater importance.

In the emerging "new normal," U.S. companies will have to be more competitive. They must sell into big developing markets; yet as the recent Cash for Clunkers effort underscored, the competitive hurdles are high: Foreign-owned automakers, led by Toyota, reaped the most benefit from the U.S. tax breaks for new car purchases, not GM and Chrysler.

Need a loan? Tough luck: Many U.S. banks are in no condition to lend. Around 416 banks are now on a "problem list" and at risk of insolvency. Regulators already have shuttered 81 banks and thrifts this year.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported on Aug. 27 that rising loan losses are depleting bank capital. The ratio of bank reserves to bad loans was 63.5 percent from April to June, the lowest it's been since the savings-and-loan crisis in 1991.

For all that, the U.S. economy does seem to be rising off its sickbed. The latest manufacturing data for August point to a return to growth, and home sales are rising. Indeed, there are many encouraging signs emerging in the global economy.

It's all growth from a low starting point, however, and many economists think that there'll be a lower baseline for U.S. and global growth if the new financial order means less risk-taking by lenders and less indebtedness by companies and consumers.

That seems evident now in the U.S. personal savings rate. It fell steadily from 9.59 percent in the 1970s to 2.68 percent in the easy-money era from 2000 to 2008; from 2005 to 2007, it averaged 1.83 percent.

Today, that trend is in reverse. From April to June, Americans' personal savings rate was 5 percent, and it could go higher if the unemployment rate keeps rising. Almost 15 million Americans are unemployed — and countless others are underemployed or uncertain about their job security, so they're spending less and saving more.

A few years ago, banks fell all over themselves to offer cheap home equity loans and lines of consumer credit. No more. Even billions in government bailout dollars to spur lending haven't changed that.

"The strategy that was stated at the beginning of the year — which is that you would sustain the banking system in order that it would resume lending — hasn't worked, and it isn't going to work," said James K. Galbraith, an economist at the University of Texas at Austin.

Over the course of 2008, the nation's five largest banks reduced their consumer loans by 79 percent, real estate loans by 66 percent and commercial loans by 19 percent, according to FDIC data. A wide range of credit measures, including recent FDIC data, show that lending remains depressed.

Why? The foundation of U.S. credit expansion for the past 20 years is in ruin. Since the 1980s, banks haven't kept loans on their balance sheets; instead, they sold them into a secondary market, where they were pooled for sale to investors as securities. The process, called securitization, fueled a rapid expansion of credit to consumers and businesses. By passing their loans on to investors, banks were freed to lend more.

Today, securitization is all but dead. Investors have little appetite for risky securities. Few buyers want a security based on pools of mortgages, car loans, student loans and the like.

"The basis of revival of the system along the line of what previously existed doesn't exist. The foundation that was supposed to be there for the revival (of the economy) . . . got washed away," Galbraith said.

Unless and until securitization rebounds, it will be hard for banks to resume robust lending because they're stuck with loans on their books.

"We've just been scared," said Robert C. Pozen, the chairman of Boston-based MFS Investment Management. He thinks that the freeze in securitization reflects a lack of trust in Wall Street and its products and remains a huge obstacle to the resumption of lending that's vital to an economic recovery.

Enter the Federal Reserve. It now props up the secondary market for pooled loans that are vital to the functioning of the U.S. financial system. The Fed is lending money to investors who're willing to buy the safest pools of loans, called asset-backed securities.

Through Sept. 3, the Fed had funded purchases of $817.6 billion in mortgage-backed securities. These securities were pooled mostly by mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae. In recent months, the Fed also has moved aggressively to lend for purchase of pools of other consumer-based loans.

Today, there's little private-sector demand for new loan-based securities; government is virtually the only game in town. That's why on Aug. 17, the Fed announced that it would extend its program to finance the purchase of pools of loans until mid-2010. That suggests there's still a long way to go before a functioning securitization market — the backbone of consumer lending — returns to a semblance of normalcy.

Top 1 Percent of Americans Reaped Two-Thirds of Income Gains in Last Economic Expansion

Income Concentration in 2007 Was at Highest Level Since 1928, New Analysis Shows


Two-thirds of the nation’s total income gains from 2002 to 2007 flowed to the top 1 percent of U.S. households, and that top 1 percent held a larger share of income in 2007 than at any time since 1928, according to an analysis of newly released IRS data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez.[1]

During those years, the Piketty-Saez data also show, the inflation-adjusted income of the top 1 percent of households grew more than ten times faster than the income of the bottom 90 percent of households.

The last economic expansion began in November 2001 and ended in December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, which means the Piketty-Saez data essentially cover that expansion. The last time such a large share of the income gain during an expansion went to the top 1 percent of households — and such a small share went to the bottom 90 percent of households — was in the 1920s (see Figure 1). [2]

Piketty and Saez’s unique data series on income inequality, based on IRS files, is particularly valuable because it provides detailed information on income gains at the top of the income scale and extends back to 1913.

The new data show:

  • 2007 marked the fifth straight year in which income gains at the top outpaced those among the rest of the population. From 2002 to 2007, the average inflation-adjusted income of the top 1 percent of households rose 62 percent, compared to 4 percent for the bottom 90 percent of households (see Table 1).

Table 1:
Average Income Gains, Adjusted for Inflation, 2002-2007

Dollar Increase

Percent Increase

Average Annual Increase

Bottom 90 Percent

$1,206

3.9%

0.8%

Next 9 Percent

$19,476

13.0%

2.5%

Top 1 Percent

$521,127

61.8%

10.1%

Top 0.1 Percent

$3,455,384

94.1%

14.2%

Note : In 2007, the bottom 90 percent of households were those with incomes below about $110,000. The next 9 percent were those with incomes between $110,000 and about $400,000, and the top 0.1 percent were those with incomes above about $2,000,000. Calculations are in current 2007 dollars.

  • The share of the nation’s income flowing to the top 1 percent of households increased sharply, from 16.9 percent in 2002 to 23.5 percent in 2007 — a larger share than at any point since 1928 (see Figure 2). In 2000, at the peak of the 1990s boom, the top 1 percent received 21.5 percent of total income.[3]

  • Income gains have been even more pronounced among those at the very top of the income scale. The incomes of the top one-tenth of 1 percent (0.1 percent) of U.S. households have grown more rapidly than the incomes of the top 1 percent of households as a whole, rising by 94 percent — or $3.5 million per household — since 2002. The share of the nation’s income flowing to the top one-tenth of 1 percent of households increased from 7.3 percent of the total income in the nation in 2002 to 12.3 percent in 2007. This is the highest level in the Piketty-Saez data going back to 1913, surpassing even the previous peak in 1928.

The uneven distribution of economic gains in recent years continues a longer-term trend that began in the late 1970s. In the three decades following World War II (1946-1976), robust economic gains were shared widely, with the incomes of the bottom 90 percent actually increasing more rapidly in percentage terms, on average, than the incomes of the top 1 percent. But in the three decades since 1976, the incomes of the bottom 90 percent of households have risen only slightly, on average, while the incomes of the top 1 percent have soared. [4] (See Figure 3.)

With the latest IRS data, we now have a complete picture of income concentration during the recent economic expansion, which ended in December 2007, although we do not yet have data on the recession’s effects on income concentration. Based on National Account statistics and other indicators, Professor Saez predicts that income concentration will likely fall in 2008 and 2009 as it did following the dot.com collapse at the start of this decade. Whether the highest income households will once more capture a highly disproportionate share of income gains as the economy begins to recover is uncertain, but Saez, along with Harvard economist Lawrence Katz, points to previous recessions and notes that only major policy shifts like the New Deal have prevented income concentration from “bouncing back” after a decline. In the absence of significant policy changes, income concentration levels could well return to their previous highs after the current recession ends and resume their 30-year climb. [5]

[1] Piketty and Saez rely on detailed Internal Revenue Service micro-files for available years, extending the full series to 1913 using aggregate data and statistical techniques. Their August 2009 revision incorporates the detailed micro-files for 2007 that just became available. For details on their methods, see Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, “Income Inequality in the United States: 1913-1998,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 2003, or, for a less technical summary, see http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2007.pdf. Their most recent estimates are available at http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/TabFig2007.xls.

[2] According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the last economic expansion began in November 2001 and ended in December 2007. However, the real income of the top 1 percent of households did not reach a trough until 2002 and that of the bottom 90 percent until 2003. For the purposes of this paper we measure income growth between 2002 and 2007. If we had chosen 2001 as the base year, the share of income gains accruing to the top 1 percent would have been 76 percent and that of the bottom 90 percent would have been 2 percent. If we had chosen 2003, those respective shares would have been 59 percent and 20 percent.

[3] Piketty and Saez present three different data series, each of which uses a different income concept and therefore yields somewhat different estimates of the share of income going to each group. (For example, estimates of the share of income going to the top 1 percent in 2007 range from 18.29 percent in one series to 23.50 percent in the series we rely on here to 20.33 percent in the third series.) We follow the income concept in Saez’s most recent report and focus on the series that includes capital gains income both in ranking households and in measuring the income that households receive. This definition of income corresponds most closely to adjusted gross income (AGI), although it has the disadvantage of fluctuating with the stock market.

Piketty and Saez also present a data series that includes capital gains income but ranks households without capital gains, as well as a series that excludes capital gains altogether. All three data series yield similar results. For example, in 2007, under both income concepts that include capital gains income, the share of income flowing to the top 1 percent was at its highest level since 1928. Under the income concept that excludes capital gains, the income share going to the top 1 percent was at the highest level since 1929.

[4] Different data series show modestly larger or smaller gains for the bottom 90 percent, but all series show a similar discrepancy between the bottom 90 percent and the top 1 percent.

[5] Saez details his prediction for trends in income concentration in the public summary of his work (supra note 1). Katz is quoted in David Leonhardt and Geraldine Fabrikant, “Rise of the Super-Rich Hits a Sobering Wall,” New York Times, Aug. 20, 2009.

The 9/11 WTC Collapses: An Audio-Video Analysis

The foundations for the "War on Terror" lie in the ruins of the World Trade Center. The official account of what occurred on 9/11 is full of inconsistencies, but the mainstream media does not seek explanations. This 9-14-2001 CNN explanation of the collapses demonstrates that absurdity is unquestioned - how can quarter mile high buildings be designed to collapse perfectly in the event of a disaster?

This page goes through some of many inconsistencies in the official story. Grab a cup of coffee and have a read - there are numerous audio and video files in the sub-pages which illustrate the points made. When you've gone through everything ask yourself why the mainstream media avoids these issues.


Click for full sized image


Who Told Giuliani the WTC was going to collapse? [Details]

Rudolph Giuliani, the Police Commissioner, the Fire Commissioner, and the Head of Emergency Management were told that the World Trade Center was going to collapse. How was this known, and why were only a select few warned? UPDATE: The OEM issued the warning.


There Were No 800ºC Infernos in the Twin Towers [Details]

We are told that the twin towers collapsed due to infernos initiated by the plane impacts, yet eyewitness testimony and firefighters broadcasts prove there were no infernos in the buildings, so why did the buildings collapse within minutes of the aircraft impacts?

The Collapse of WTC 1: Madrid Exposes a Fundamental Flaw [Details]

The core of Madrid's Windsor Building withstood an 18+ hour 800ºC fire. WTC 1 collapsed in minutes even though its core was solid and received no significant heating. Why?


The 'Truss Theory': A Fantasy Concocted to Conceal a Demolition [Details]

We are told that the twin towers perimeter walls were connected to the inner core by weak trusses. We are also told that the truss connection bolts were weak. If that's the case then why didn't WTC 1 collapse when Flight 11 hit the building?

WTC 1: An Impossible Collapse [Details]

Two seconds of a WTC 1 collapse video graphically demonstrate the 'truss theory' is a fantasy.


Video cameras positioned atop the World Trade Center which were used to feed daily images to local television stations were inexplicably inoperative that morning. [WingTV]

Live video cameras on the WTC would have graphically registered the following...

Abruptly, there was an ear-splitting noise. The south tower shook... [ASNE]


Seismic recordings, eyewitness testimony, and two videos of WTC 1 indicate a large detonation occurred at the base of the building fourteen seconds before its collapse.

...the probable cause of the above: thermite detonations in the buildings.


9/11 Firefighters: Bombs and Explosions in the WTC [Details]

"Tower two has had major explosion and what appears to be a complete collapse", "...those involved in the secondary explosion at tower 1, 'kay, I've got five patients...", "We have got numerous people covered in dust from the secondary explosion...", "We've got another explosion at the tower..."


"Floor by floor it started popping out."

"It was if they had detonators and they planned to take down a building."

WMV video download (411kB)

"It [WTC 2] started exploding," said Ross Milanytch, 57, who works at nearby Chase Manhattan Bank. "It was about the 70th floor. And each second another floor exploded out for about eight floors, before the cloud obscured it all." [ASNE] "I saw small explosions on each floor." [Wing TV]

One eyewitness whose office is near the World Trade Center told AFP that he was standing among a crowd of people on Church Street, about two-and-a-half blocks from the South tower, when he saw "a number of brief light sources being emitted from inside the building between floors 10 and 15." He saw about six of these brief flashes, accompanied by "a crackling sound" before the tower collapsed. Each tower had six central support columns. [American Free Press]

"When we got to about 50 ft from the South Tower, we heard the most eerie sound that you would ever hear. A high-pitched noise and a popping noise made everyone stop. We all looked up. At the point, it all let go. The way I see it, it had to be the rivets. The building let go, there was an explosion and the whole top leaned toward us and started coming down." [september11.ceenews]

"...and then all of a sudden it started like... it sounded like gunfire... you know, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang and then all of a sudden three big explosions."

WMV video download (231kB)

The above accounts indicate cutter charges were used to bring down WTC 2 - see the Oklahoma City bombing for an explanation of the sounds heard.


Larry Silverstein, WTC 7, and the 9/11 Demolition [Details]

We are told that WTC 7 collapsed through fire, yet Larry Silverstein says the building was "pulled" (i.e. demolished). Videos of the collapse and other evidence shows that the building was indeed demolished. Evidence also shows that WTCs 1 & 2 came down in the exactly the same way.


The FEMA WTC Collapse Analysis Farce [Details]

The BPAT investigation team received $600,000 in FEMA funding, a drop in the ocean compared to the $50 million set aside for the NASA investigation of the Columbia shuttle disaster. The BPAT team took more than 3 weeks to initiate an investigation of WTC debris meaning vital evidence was lost.


If the twin towers had remained standing on 9/11 (as they were supposed to) they would have been monuments to the inaction of the US government and military. These monuments would have rapidly become a huge embarrassment to many people, and would have required a costly demolition.

Incredibly these two quarter mile high buildings both suffered catastrophic structural failures and collapsed straight into their own footprints. The people who should have been red faced bankrupts as a result of 9/11 are now swimming in money and power thanks to the perfect collapse of the twin towers.

Think about it.


"If you've seen many of the managed demolitions where they implode a building and they cause it to essentially to fall vertically because they cause all of the vertical columns to fail simultaneously, that's exactly what it looked like and that's what happened" - Matthys Levy, co author Why buildings Fall Down

WMV video download (524kB)


“When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains--however improbable--must be the truth.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle