What The Fucks Going On Blog

Giuliani Leads Liar Choir: "9-11 didn't happen on Bush's watch..."

EARL NASH,  WTFG   " Pants   on   Fire "     Correspondent     

>>>>>  “It’s news to YOU...”  <<<<<

Some people are so full of themselves, so arrogant, so egotistical, that they actually believe that the Americans are so stupid that they will believe anything; they believe that if they repeat a lie often enough, The People will be gullible enough to start to believe it, even in the face of Truth. 

They believe that they can piss on your shoes, tell you that's it's raining, and expect you to believe that bullshit.

And, they believe that it works best when the lie is spoken in a "tough guy" New Yawk City accent.

 
"Trudy" Giuliani:  You are no "tough guy."  In the words of Dick Cheney, you were "soft on terrorism."  You did not properly protect the citizens of New York City.  With your "tough guy" image, which you earned with your "clean-up" of NYC by rounding up helpless homeless people and, with a wink and a nod, encouraged law enforcement to push brutality to the limit.

                                                               

While the 9-11 attack was brewing, you were busy burnishing your Potent Prosecutor, "Tough Guy" image by cracking down on the "least of these," the weak, the defenseless, the vulnerable and using the NYPD to arrest them. 

Guess you had already arrested all the violent criminals in the city, huh?

But, "Trudi,"  you were not "tough" enough to stop terrorists from killing thousands of people in your own city.  Mr. Tough Talk; you are famous for taking action AFTER your citizens were attacked.  You are an expert on how to clean up AFTER a terrorist attack, AFTER 
you have allowed it to happen.

No wonder you want to forget 9-11; you were asleep at the switch on September 11.  How can you criticize the Obama administration over a flubbed attack, when the worst attack on the American homeland occurred, on your watch, in your city.

You have taken advantage of the 9-11 attack to gain notoriety and allow you to market yourself as an "expert on terrorism."  

You are no hero; you are an abject failure; you failed to protect the people of NYC; you failed to get the Republican Presidential nomination, where you used the 9-11 attack to "make your Homeland Security chops" to give the American people the false impression that you could make them safe.  You actually believed that everyone would forget that you failed to make your own city safe; now you seem to have forgotten that failure.

 
Sorry, Rudy, Mr. Tough Guy, Mr. Wise Guy, Mr. City Slicker, Mr. Terrorism Expert, you don't realize you aren't fooling anybody but yourself;  

the rest of us know that rain does not smell like urine.

Go back on Saturday Night Live and put on your dress costume again and let people laugh at you

pretending to be a woman; you are not a hero and you are no tough guy; you are a failure and a wimp.  Yes, "Trudi," put your dress back on

                                                                                             
and go to Yankee Stadium in drag and root for your Yankees, or US Steel,

but shut your lying pie hole.

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In his January 3 column, Las Vegas Review-Journal publisher Sherman Frederick falsely claimed that "the two cases of domestic terrorism since 9/11" happened "on Obama's watch." In fact, while Frederick and other conservative media figures have recently downplayed the number of attacks on the United States under former President Bush, there were numerous post-9-11 terrorist attacks attempted during the Bush administration, including the attempted detonation of an explosive device on an airplane by shoe bomber Richard Reid and the anthrax attacks.

In his January 6 New York Post column, Michael Goodwin advanced the false claim that former President George W. Bush had "a record of zero successful attacks on America after 9/11."

On the December 27 edition of CNN's State of the Union, Republican strategist Mary Matalin falsely claimed that Bush "inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation's history." In fact, the September 11, 2001, attacks occurred eight months into Bush's presidency and more than a month after he had received a Presidential Daily Briefing titled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."

"We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term." Bush White House Press Secretary Dana Perino falsely claimed on the November 24, 2009, edition of Fox News' Hannity that "[w]e did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term."

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At least up until recently, the Bush defenders portrayed his record as "no attacks on the U.S. under Bush's watch after 9-11." But now, with the passage of more time, the defenders are growing bolder in their attempts to rewrite history. Now they want to completely erase the Bush administration's responsibility for the failures leading up to 9-11, to say nothing of the other terrorist attacks carried out or attempted during that time, including the anthrax attacks and the 2002 attack at the El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport.

Forgetting 9-11 is bad enough. Rewriting its history for political gain is utterly shameful." 

[Brian Frederick, http://mediamatters.org/blog/201001080036]

domestic attacks under Bush, including 9-11 attacks:

September 11, 2001 attacks. As CNN noted, "On September 11, 2001, four U.S. planes hijacked by terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people in a matter of hours."

2001 anthrax attacks. A March 2004 State Department report on "Significant Terrorist Incidents, 1961-2003" quotes then-Attorney General John Ashcroft saying of the letters containing anthrax mailed to various targets: "When people send anthrax through the mail to hurt people and invoke terror, it's a terrorist act." Five people were killed as a result of those letters in the autumn of 2001.

2001 shoe bomber attempted attack. In June 2008, then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff described Reid's December 2001 attempt "to blow up a trans-Atlantic plane with a shoe bomb" as an attempt to "carry out terrorist operations for Al-Qaeda."

2002 attack against El Al ticket counter at LAX. In July 2002, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet opened fire at an El Al Airlines ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport killing two people and wounding four others before being shot dead. A 2004 Justice Department report stated that Hadayet's case had been "officially designated as an act of international terrorism."

2002 DC-area sniper. The state of Virginia indicted Washington, D.C.-area sniper John Allen Muhammad -- along with his accomplice, a minor at the time -- on "an act of terrorism" for one of the murders he committed during a three-week shooting spree across Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Muhammad was convicted, sentenced to death, and subsequently executed for the crime.

2006 UNC SUV attack. In March 2006, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill graduate Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar drove an SUV into an area of campus, striking nine pedestrians. According to reports, Taheri-azar said he acted because he wanted to "avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world." Taheri-azar also reportedly stated in a letter: "I was aiming to follow in the footsteps of one of my role models, Mohammad Atta, one of the 9/11/01 hijackers, who obtained a doctorate degree."

Getting "Fed" Up with Gold Man Sacks' Timmy Geither? Will Obama Sack "Timmy the G."?

EARL NASH,  WTFG   "Rotten   in   Denmark"    Correspondent      

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  “It’s news to you…”  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

The odor emanating from "Timmy G.'s" office at Treasury is wafting inexorably toward the White House. 

And,

   

...like Nixon...Geither may be brought down, less from a screw-up and more from an attempt to cover it up.

 

KITCHEN TIP FOR TIM:  Wrapping fish in newspaper will hide it from sight, but the rot will continue to fester, until people can't help but notice it.

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FROM: http://www.banksterusa.org/content/geithners-stock-plummeting

Submitted by Mary Bottari on January 7, 2010 - 12:50 

The Geither to Goldman clock keeps on ticking. New revelations about Secretary Geithner's mishandling of the AIG bailout while head of the New York Fed have once again set his stock plummeting in Washington, DC and fueled talk that Geithner is a liability to the Obama adminstration.

To recap, we know that in September 2008, AIG was running out of cash to cover all the credit default swaps it had issued and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, headed then by Geithner, stepped in with an $85 billion dollar line of credit (later expanded to  $182 billion.) What AIG did with the bailout money was kept a secret. Six months later it was revealed that AIG had promptly taken the bailout bucks and handed it over to about 10 customers or counterparties, including Goldman Sachs and foreign banks, without forcing the counterparties to take a discount on the payments.

The counterparties were lucky to get a dime from taxpayer-owned AIG at that point, but to the surprise of many, they received 100 cents on the dollar. Later it was revealed that the New York Fed was responsible for the full payments. While AIG negotiators had secured discounts on the payments, the New York Fed intervened to make sure that the counterparties were made whole at 100 cents on the dollar, costing taxpayers an extra $13 billion or so.

Today, Bloomberg reported that emails secured by Republican Congressman Darrell Issa that show that the New York Fed had not only screwed up the bailout, but also pressured AIG and others to keep this information secret, possibly in contradiction to securities law.

“It appears that the New York Fed deliberately pressured AIG to restrict and delay the disclosure of important information,”  said Issa. Taxpayers “deserve full and complete disclosure under our nation’s securities laws, not the withholding of politically inconvenient information.”

It is time for Geithner to come clean regarding the details of the AIG bailout and the mistakes that were made. The continued drip drip drip of revelations about this botched bailout serves no one.

Yemen "Unreliable Partner" US uses Saddam's Intell Services--"Failed States"--Who's Next?

EARL NASH,  WTFG   "Whack-a-Mole"   Game  Correspondent   

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  “It’s news to you…”  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Did you hear the joke about how the US is relying on Saddam Hussein's military intelligence personnel in Yemen--because they can't trust the Yememi military intelligence?

 

No joke, it has come to this:  the US has wedded itself to another "unreliable partner" (Yemen) in the Middle East "Whack-a-Mole" game.  Who will the next "reliable partner" against al-Queda be?  Since "failed states" are where al-Qaeda sets up shop, here is a list, in order of "Most Likely To Fail:"

 

Somalia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Guinea, Pakistan, Cote d’Ivoire, Haiti, Myanmar, Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, North Korea, Yemen, Bangladesh, East Timor, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Niger, Burundi, Nepal, Cameroon, Guinea-Bissau, Malawi, Lebanon, Republic of the Congo, Uzbekistan, Sierra Leone, Georgia, Liberia, Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Tajikistan

Osama Bin Laden said that he would ultimately defeat the US by driving it into bankruptcy.

Does the US have enough troops and money to prop up many more "reliable partners."  

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Baathist officers who fled Iraq in the wake of the fall of Saddam are working with US intelligence Photo: REUTERS

The two sides were enemies on the battlefield just seven years ago but have been brought together by the failings of Yemen's security and intelligence apparatus, according to diplomatic and military sources in the country.

Although mutual suspicions linger, the collaboration is said to have achieved some intelligence breakthroughs and helped instil greater efficiency and professionalism within the most elite Yemeni counterterrorism outfit.

Co-operation with the former Baathist officers, who fled Iraq in the wake of the US-led invasion and the fall of Saddam, is expected to grow further in the wake of the failed terror attack in the skies above Detroit.

Both Britain and the United States have pledged to bolster Yemeni efforts to take on al-Qaeda's local affiliate, al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP), since it claimed responsibility for a thwarted attempt to bring down an American airliner on Christmas Day.

The US-Iraqi alliance was born out of frustration over the incompetence and suspected al-Qaeda sympathies of many within Yemen's domestic intelligence body, the Political Security Organisation, or PSO.

"We do not know where the allegiance of many in the intelligence apparatus lies," said a western diplomat.

According to many Yemen observers, the PSO was instrumental in the resurrection of al-Qaeda's fortunes after it was accused of complicity in the escape of 23 terror suspects from one of its prisons in 2006.

Nasir al-Wahayshi, AQAP's highly effective leader, and several suspects linked to the bombing of the US warship USS Cole of Aden in 2000 were among those who won their freedom.

Under pressure from the United States in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's president, created the rival National Security Agency (NSA).

It has taken credit for providing intelligence that led to air strikes last month which, Yemen claims, killed dozens of AQAP operatives

A number of former Iraqi officers, some of them members of Saddam's feared intelligence service, the Mukhabarat, were recruited to the service.

"They are involved in training and also intelligence gathering," said a former Yemeni security officer.

At the outset of its intervention in Iraq in 2003, the United States embarked on a rigorous policy of "de-Baathification" and disbanded the Iraqi army.

Many fled to Syria before receiving an invitation to come to Yemen from President Saleh, according to former Yemeni military officers and analysts.

"After the collapse of the Baathists in Iraq, many came to Yemen," said Fares al-Saqqaf, a prominent analyst. "Many saw it as a transit point, but others stayed here and became government experts."

The Yemeni president was a strong ally of Saddam, and is said to have regarded him as his mentor. He even earned the sobriquet "Little Saddam" for the way he aped the Iraqi leader by wearing a revolver holstered at the seat of his trousers.

Mr Saleh also gave refuge to the relatives of Saddam's top henchman, including the families of Tariq Aziz, the former deputy prime minister, and Izzat al-Douri, one of the Iraqi dictator's closest military allies.

But Mr Saleh's allies also include a number of Salafists, whose puritanical interpretation of Islam is shared by many in al-Qaeda. Many fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, an experience that brought some into contact with Osama bin Laden.

Although a majority eschew bin Laden's doctrine of violence, the presence of so many Salafists in the government could explain why the CIA did not tell Yemen it had received intelligence of an AQAP plot to set in motion "a Nigerian bomber."

While acknowledging that the Americans and Iraqis do work together, a Western diplomat said the relationship remained ambiguous.

"It shouldn't be overstated but, yes, it looks like there is some crossover," he said.

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Geithner charged with manipulating AIG regulatory reporting documents--Raised SEC concerns

EARL NASH,  WTFG   "Rotten   in  Denmark"  Correspondent      

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  “It’s news to you…”  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

U. S. Treasury Sec., Timothy Geithner, the man tasked by President Obama to implement Phase Two of the Bush Bank Bailout, allegedly  manipulated bailout recipient, AIG, pressuring the insurance giant to withhold, "restrict and delay" crucial financial information, allegedly with the intention to avoid full and complete disclosure required under Federal securities' laws.

While Geithner was in charge of the New York Fed he "deliberately pressured AIG to restrict and delay the disclosure of important information... (Taxpayers) deserve full and complete disclosure under our nation’s securities laws, not the withholding of politically inconvenient information.”  said Representative Darrell Issa (Cal.-R), ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The negotiations about how much the American taxpayers would pay for "derivatives"--paper bonds of dubious value--were critical to the financial survival of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., a former employer of Geitner.

The e-mail exchanges between AIG and the New York Fed over the insurer’s disclosure of the transactions show that the regulator (Geithner's NY Fed) pressed the company to keep details out of the public eye. The e-mails span five months starting in November 2008 and include requests from the New York Fed to withhold documents and delay disclosures.

The curious actions of Geithner's NY Fed, which could be interpreted as using his insider position to advise AIG to withhold the whole truth in its legal filing, was "challenged privately by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which polices the adequacy of disclosures by publicly traded firms.

Even Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the e-mail exchanges were “troubling” and that he supports holding congressional hearings to review them. 

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Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails between the company and its regulator show.

AIG said in a draft of a regulatory filing that the insurer paid banks, which included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA, 100 cents on the dollar for credit-default swaps they bought from the firm. The New York Fed crossed out the reference, according to the e-mails, and AIG excluded the language when the filing was made public on Dec. 24, 2008. The e-mails were obtained by Representative Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The New York Fed took over negotiations between AIG and the banks in November 2008 as losses on the swaps, which were contracts tied to subprime home loans, threatened to swamp the insurer weeks after its taxpayer-funded rescue. The regulator decided that Goldman Sachs and more than a dozen banks would be fully repaid for $62.1 billion of the swaps, prompting lawmakers to call the AIG rescue a “backdoor bailout” of financial firms.

“It appears that the New York Fed deliberately pressured AIG to restrict and delay the disclosure of important information,” said Issa, a California Republican. Taxpayers “deserve full and complete disclosure under our nation’s securities laws, not the withholding of politically inconvenient information.”

Geithner Had ‘No Role’

“Secretary Geithner played no role in these decisions,” Meg Reilly, a Treasury spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. “He was recused from working on issues involving specific companies, including AIG,” after his nomination for Treasury secretary on Nov. 24, 2008. Geithner “began to insulate himself weeks earlier in anticipation of his nomination,” she said in a separate statement.

Geithner, who was tapped by President Barack Obama, took the Treasury job in January, 2009. Mark Herr, a spokesman for New York-based AIG, declined to comment.

Issa requested the e-mails from AIG Chief Executive Officer Robert Benmosche in October after Bloomberg News reported that the New York Fed ordered the crippled insurer not to negotiate for discounts in settling the swaps. The decision to pay the banks in full may have cost AIG, and thus taxpayers, at least $13 billion, based on the discount the insurer was seeking.

Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the e-mail exchanges were “troubling” and that he supports holding congressional hearings to review them.

AIG’s Dec. 24, 2008, filing was challenged privately by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which polices the adequacy of disclosures by publicly traded firms. The e-mails span five months starting in November 2008 and include requests from the New York Fed to withhold documents and delay disclosures.

Under pressure from lawmakers, AIG disclosed the names of the counterparties, which included Deutsche Bank AG and Merrill Lynch & Co., on March 15. The disclosure said AIG made more than $27 billion in payments without identifying the securities tied to the swaps or listing the value of individual purchases by each bank, details the Fed wanted to keep out, according to the March 12 e-mail from AIG’s Shannon.

The e-mail exchanges between AIG and the New York Fed over the insurer’s disclosure of the transactions show that the regulator pressed the company to keep details out of the public eye. Issa’s comments add to criticism from Republican lawmakers, including Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, who wrote letters in the past two months demanding information from Geithner, 48, about the costs of the AIG bailout.

E-mail ‘Troubling’

Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the e-mail exchanges were “troubling” and that he supports holding congressional hearings to review them.

AIG’s Dec. 24, 2008, filing was challenged privately by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which polices the adequacy of disclosures by publicly traded firms. The agency said in a letter to then-CEO Edward Liddy six days later that AIG should provide a Schedule A, which lists collateral postings for the swaps and names the bank counterparties that purchased them from the company. The Schedule A was disclosed about five months later in a filing.

Securities Lawyers

“Our position has always been that if AIG’s securities lawyers determine that AIG is legally obligated to make a particular filing or disclosure, then that is what AIG must do,” Thomas Baxter, general counsel for the New York Fed, said in a statement. He said it was appropriate for the New York Fed, as party to deals outlined in the filings, “to provide comments on a number of issues, including disclosures, with the understanding that the final decision rested with AIG’s securities counsel.”

Kathleen Shannon, an AIG deputy general counsel, wrote to the insurer’s executives in a March 12, 2009, e-mail about the conflicting demands from the New York Fed and SEC.

“In order to make only the disclosure that the Fed wants us to make,” Shannon wrote, “we need to have a reasonable basis for believing and arguing to the SEC that the information we are seeking to protect is not already publicly available.”

Deutsche Bank

Under pressure from lawmakers, AIG disclosed the names of the counterparties, which included Deutsche Bank AG and Merrill Lynch & Co., on March 15. The disclosure said AIG made more than $27 billion in payments without identifying the securities tied to the swaps or listing the value of individual purchases by each bank, details the Fed wanted to keep out, according to the March 12 e-mail from AIG’s Shannon.

Earlier that month, Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn testified to Congress that disclosure of the counterparties would harm AIG’s ability to do business. The insurer agreed to turn over a stake of almost 80 percent in connection to its bailout.

The e-mails span five months starting in November 2008 and include requests from the New York Fed to withhold documents and delay disclosures. The correspondence includes e-mails between AIG’s Shannon and attorneys at the New York Fed and its law firm, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. Tom Orewyler, a spokesman for Davis Polk in New York, declined to comment as did Shannon.

According to Shannon’s e-mails obtained by Issa, the New York Fed suggested that AIG refrain in a filing from mentioning so-called synthetic collateralized debt obligations, which bundled derivative contracts rather than actual loans.

‘No Mention of the Synthetics’

The filing “reflects your client’s desire that there be no mention of the synthetics in connection with this transaction,” Shannon wrote to Davis Polk on Dec. 2, 2008. “They will not be mentioned at all.”

AIG had about $9.8 billion of swaps protecting the synthetic holdings as of September 2008, the company said on Dec. 10, 2008. Goldman Sachs said in a press release last month that it was among banks that had losses on synthetic CDOs.

As part of a bailout that swelled to $182.3 billion, AIG and the Fed created Maiden Lane III, a taxpayer-funded facility designed to remove mortgage-linked swaps from the insurer’s books. Shannon told the New York Fed on Nov. 24, 2008, that AIG executives wanted to publicly disclose details about Maiden Lane the next day.

“Do you think it might be feasible to hold off on the Maiden Lane III 8K and press release until next week?” Brett Phillips, a New York Fed lawyer wrote in an e-mail that day. “The thinking is that the Maiden Lane III closing will be a less transparent event, and it might be better to narrow the gap between AIG’s announcement and the New York Fed’s publication of term sheet summaries.”

‘Guided By Your Counsel’

“Given the significance of the transaction, AIG would be best served by filing tomorrow,” Shannon wrote. “We will of course be guided by your counsel.” The document outlining the Maiden Lane agreement was posted on Dec. 2, 2008.

In at least one instance, AIG pushed for documents to be disclosed and then released the information.

“We believe that the agreements listed in the index (i.e., the Master Investment and Credit Agreement and the Shortfall Agreement) do not need to be filed,” Peter Bazos, a Davis Polk lawyer wrote on Nov. 25, 2008. “Please let us know your thoughts in this regard.”

AIG’s Shannon replied that “the better practice and better disclosure in this complex area is to file the agreements currently rather than to delay.” The agreements were included in the Dec. 2 filing.

More details of the negotiations over swaps payments emerged in November 2009 when Neil Barofsky, the special inspector in charge of policing the Troubled Asset Relief Program, assessed the Fed’s role in the bailout.

‘Entitled to Know’

“Federal Reserve officials provided AIG’s counterparties with tens of billions of dollars they likely would have not otherwise received,” Barofsky wrote in a Nov. 17 report. “The default position, whenever government funds are deployed in a crisis to support markets or institutions, should be that the public is entitled to know what is being done with government funds.”

The New York Fed may eventually recoup its loan to Maiden Lane III, the vehicle that obtained CDOs from the banks after paying to cancel the swaps, Barofsky wrote. According to a New York Fed report, the value of securities and cash held in Maiden Lane III climbed 4.5 percent to $23.5 billion in the three months ended Sept. 30.

AIG’s first rescue was an $85 billion credit line from the New York Fed in September 2008. The bailout was expanded three times and is valued at $182.3 billion. That includes a $60 billion Fed credit line, an investment of as much as $69.8 billion from the Treasury and up to $52.5 billion for Maiden Lane facilities to buy mortgage-linked assets owned or backed by the company.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hugh Son in New York at [email protected]

Last Updated: January 7, 2010 20:18 EST

On January 26, 2009, Timothy F. Geithner was sworn in as the 75^th Secretary of the United States Department of the Treasury.

Before his nomination to the Treasury, Secretary Geithner served as the ninth president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he began on November 17, 2003.

Is Cheney's Intell Cabal Sending The President, the country, a chilling message? " BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID !" Reply loudly: "TREASON!"

EARL NASH,  WTFG   E D I T O R I A L    

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  “It’s news to you…”  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Is it possible that Dick Cheney and his moles and rats in the government may be putting the life of the President of the United States and American citizens in harm's way?

  The unpatriotic criticism of the current administration's competence to thwart terrorism by Cheney and his daughter Mary, ("President Obama refuses to use all his weapons against terrorism.") amounts to providing "aid and comfort" and intelligence and worse, a public invitation, to the enemy to strike this country while, according to a former Vice President, we are weak and ripe for an attack. 

Some dare call it treason.

Top officials in the Obama administration suspect that a rogue cabal inside the US Intel services (FBI/CIA/DIA) is intentionally creating security breaches--willfully "witholding intelligence"--to embarrass the President, which, perhaps not coincidentally, provides Dick Cheney with fodder for his war canons.

While President Obama is righteously angry about the "failures" by his Intel services with the "Package Bomber" caper and the "Open Door Policy" fiasco at the White House. But this is more than just an attempt to embarrass the President; it is an attempt to bring him down...maybe even take him out.  The President must uncover the Intell moles and not just fire them, but charge them with treason for willful negligence and depraved indifference for intentionally placing American citizens and the President that they elected "in harm's way."

 
Some fear that this is intended to create an atmosphere of systemic failure that may end with the assassination of President Obama, as a direct consequence of his Federal employee "protectors" looking the other way;

We know where you stood when you killed our President...

...the way that the Secret Service was ordered to "stand down" in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963; the same way his brother RFK was allowed to be killed in a hotel kitchen by the now stock character--"the lone wolf."

 
We know who killed RFK...

President Obama was clearly piqued when he noted that the Intell information was available, but the Intell agencies, mysteriously went "stupid" and failed to analyze the information and "connect the dots."  With all the resources dedicated to analysis, this scenario is totally incredible; that is, it is not credible, not believable. It stinks!

If Cheney The Dick is genuinely concerned about his President and his country he would say: "Mr. President, we're all on the same side here when it comes to thwarting terrorism.  Can I offer you some suggestions on how to do it better?" 

Instead, Cheney has created a rabidly divisive "Shadow Government" vs. "President Obama" battle, during what Cheney himself chooses to call a "War." 

Undermining the President and the government during a time of war borders on treason; Cheney is not a loyal opposition, he is just an impotent, bitter, Cold War Warrior, who is providing "aid and comfort" and an public invitation to attack the US to the enemy.  Some patriot! 

Here's wishing that you, Mr. Cheney and your "fellow travellers" all remain loyal to each other and all hang together!

MUTALLAB FESTOONED WITH RED FLAGS

Did Cheney's cronies in the Intell services "get the message" from The Dick and The Daughter of Dick and intentionally, rather suddenly, become incompetent? 

 "Top officials in the Obama White House are considering the possibility that the Christmas day attempt by Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Mutallab to blow up an airliner about to land in Detroit was deliberately and intentionally facilitated by unnamed networks inside the US intelligence community. This was the gist of a report by Richard Wolf delivered in this evening's edition of cable network MSNBC's Countdown program, hosted by Keith Olbermann.  [Webster G. Tarpley, Tarpley.net 1-5-2010]

"What The Fuck is Going On?" indeed!

The intentional sabotage and undermining of anti-terrorist screening procedures at two major airports would explain the mystery of how an amateur terrorist, who set his own genitalia on fire, could gain super powers, and make himself invisible to security personnel without a great deal of coordinated assistance,  professional assistance,

"Intelligence" assistance.

"In London, Mutallab was assisted by a 'well-dressed Indian,' who told the gate agent that Mutallab was a Sudanese who did not have a passport. Nevertheless, Mutallab was allowed to board.

Only the active complicity of treasonous moles can explain Mutallab's miraculous immunity to all surveillance and screening despite all these factors of suspicion." [Webster Tarpley, Russia Today, interview, Dec. 28, 2009]

This suspicious "stand down" posture of an organized cabal in the Intell services begs the question:  "Who benefits?"

* It gives Dick Cheney grist for his fear mongering about how President Obama has gone soft on terrorism and has abandoned the Cheney-Bush jingoist slogan "War on Terror" and returned to a more moderate approach historically known as foreign policy, which balances the carrot and the stick, diplomacy and combat and the olive branches and the arrows.

*  It sends a chilling, threatening message to the President:  'Maybe you cannot rely on your Intell and Protection services to make every effort to "serve and protect" you, the Chief Executive, or the American people.'

 * It represents a "sibling rivalry" between the Intell services--FBI, CIA, DIA--that wastes resources and is counter-productive to the basic mission.

 * It creates a zeitgeist of terror and fear and a third explanation would include the desire of a rogue network inside the US government to unleash a new wave of Islamophobic hysteria to rehabilitate the discredited "global war on terror" strategy in a new and more sophisticated form... (it encourages) a US campaign of ginning up the three-cornered Yemen civil war, so as to threaten and weaken both Saudi Arabia and Iran, each of whom is backing a faction in that civil war.

Another benefit is to enhance the US presence in Yemen, a country that controls the exit from the Red Sea and thus all traffic coming out of the Suez Canal, one of the great naval choke points of the world and vital for the commerce of China, a leading US rival."

And now, here comes Big Dick Cheney telling the world how vulnerable the US is now that he and the "all hat, no cattle" "War President" 

are not at the ramparts, protecting the American homeland--the way they did on 9-11.

 

Cheney is essentially inviting the terrorists to: "Attack now; attack the US while it is weak!"  This is akin to "providing aid and comfort to the enemy" in a time of war.  Is this not akin to being a spy,who had special access to anti-terrorism procedures for eight years, volunteering "inside" intell and advice to the enemy? 

Essentially Cheney is saying:

"Hey terrorists!  Take it from me, the ex-Vice President, this country is weak and defenseless now...

 it's the perfect time to attack it!"

Dick Cheney, who never served a day in military service, who was unemployable,

 

until he lucked into a Federal job, as Press Secretary and weaseled his way up the hamster tube of the Pentagon.  The man who hired Don Rumsfeld and who was hired BY Don Rumsfeld in a role-switching patronage game, which made you wonder: 

 
Who is Defense Secretary now?  Tweedle Dick or Tweedle Don?

Dick Cheney, who sent young people to die in a desert, based on lies he personally cherry-picked from the intell--a "War of Terror" and torture, that killed, maimed, and damaged US troops and millions of civilians, mostly women and children.

Dick Cheney, a wimp, pushed around by his more potent wife, had to use the lives of Americans and Iraqis to compensate for his manhood insecurity by wagging his missile tips and playing at General Patton, squandering America's precious blood and treasure.

You, Mr. Cheney and your crony Don Rumsfeld banned photos of the coffins of our returning soldiers...

And now Dick and Rummy, who both profited handsomely from the "War on Terror," walk away with their treasure and the blood of others--military and civilian--coating their cold, festering cadavers. 

Hang together forever...war criminals... hang, together, forever.

PLOT IDEAS FOR NOVELS: "END DAYS' SECRET PLAN"

    " SUBMITTED FOR YOUR APPROVAL... "

Secret "closed door" meeting with Congress (3/14/08)
Only 4th Time In 176 Years !

SPECIAL "CLOSED SESSION" OF U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES DISCUSSED A LOT MORE THAN THE PENDING SECURITY SURVEILLANCE PROVISIONS!

This was only the fourth time in 176 years that Congress has closed its doors to the public. What was it that they were discussing that they do NOT want us to know about?

Word has begun leaking from last nights special, closed-door session of the United States House of Representatives.

Not only did members discuss new surveillance provisions as was the publicly stated reason for the closed door session, they also discussed:

1. the imminent collapse of the U.S. economy to occur by September 2008,

2. the imminent collapse of US federal government finances by February 2009,

3. the possibility of Civil War inside the USA as a result of the collapse,

4. advance round-ups of "insurgent U.S. citizens" likely to move against the government,

5. the detention of those rounded-up at "REX 84" camps constructed throughout the USA,

6. the possibility of retaliation against members of Congress for the collapses,

7. the location of "safe facilities" for members of Congress and their families to reside during expected massive civil unrest,

8. the necessary and unavoidable merger of the United States with Canada (for its natural resources) and with Mexico (for its cheap labor pool),

9. the issuance of a new currency - THE AMERO - for all three nations as the proposed solution to the coming economic armageddon.

Members of Congress were FORBIDDEN to reveal what was discussed. Several are so furious and concerned about the future of the country, they have begun leaking info. More details coming later today and over the weekend. SPREAD THE WORD!!!

Video here: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=46d_1205873088

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TOPICS: Cheese, Moose, Sister; Conspiracy; UFO's
KEYWORDS: 110th; collapse; concentrationcamps; conspiracy; contrails; economy; myths; nafta; nau; newworldorder; northamericanunion; oneworldorder; prophetic; rex84; tinfoil; whiteschoolbuses; y2k

The H1N1+H5N1 "Super Flu"--Interview with Dr. Michael Greger, M.D,

Kathy Freston

Author, Health and Wellness Expert

Posted: January 5, 2010 07:00 AM

An Interview with Dr. Michael Greger

I was intrigued (and disturbed) by a book I just read online -- www.BirdFluBook.org -- by Michael Greger, M.D. about the potential of a deadly flu pandemic, the likes of which we have never seen. Greger very clearly delineates how a virus begins, mutates, and becomes dangerous. As with so many problems we are seeing lately -- environmental or health -- factory farmed meat seems to be a big part of the cause. A graduate of the Cornell University School of Agriculture and the Tufts University School of Medicine.

Kathy Freston: How likely are we to have a bird or swine flu that turns into something really deadly and widespread?

Michael Greger: Unfortunately we don't know enough about the biology of these viruses to make accurate predictions, but influenza is definitely the disease to keep an eye on. AIDS has killed millions but is only fluid-borne. Malaria has killed millions but is relatively restricted to equatorial regions. Flu viruses are the only known pathogen capable of infecting literally billions of people in a matter of months. Right now we are in the midst of a flu pandemic caused by the swine-origin influenza virus H1N1. Millions of people have become infected and thousands have died, but H1N1 is not particularly virulent. There are other flu viruses that have emerged in recent decades such as the highly "pathogenic" (disease-causing) bird flu H5N1 that may have the potential to cause much greater human harm.

KF: What kind of damage could it do in terms of population mortality?

MG: Currently H5N1 kills approximately 60% of those it infects, so you don't even get a coin toss chance of survival. That's a mortality rate on par with some strains of Ebola. Thankfully, only a few hundred people have become infected. Should a virus like H5N1 trigger a pandemic, though, the results could be catastrophic. During a pandemic as many as 2 or 3 billion people can become infected. A 60% mortality rate is simply unimaginable. Unfortunately, it's not as far-fetched as it sounds. Both China and Indonesia have reported sporadic outbreaks of the H5N1 bird flu in pigs and sporadic outbreaks of the new pandemic virus H1N1 in pigs as well. Should a pig become co-infected with both strains, a hybrid mutant could theoretically arise with human transmissibility of swine flu and the human lethality of bird flu. That's the kind of nightmare scenario that keeps virologists up at night.

KF: How does a virus like that kill? What does it do to the body?

MG: Most often it starts with standard flu-like symptoms--fever, cough, and muscle aches. Instead of just infecting the respiratory tract, though, H5N1 may spread throughout the body and infect the brain, for example, leaving victims in a coma. Other early symptoms atypical of regular seasonal flu include vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, chest pain, and bleeding from the nose and gums. Death is usually from acute fulminant respiratory distress, in which one basically drowns in one's own blood-tinted respiratory secretions.

Most of the damage is actually done by one's own immune system. H5N1 seems to trigger a "cytokine storm," an overexuberant immune reaction to the virus. These cytokine chemical messengers set off such a massive inflammatory reaction that on autopsy the lungs of victims may be virus-free, meaning that your body wins, but in burning down the village in order to save it you may not live through the process. In fact the reason why young people may be so vulnerable is because they have the strongest immune systems, and it's one's immune system that may kill you.

KF: How easy is it to contract the virus once it's in full swing?

MG: Catching a pandemic flu virus is essentially as easy as catching the regular seasonal flu. During a flu pandemic about 1 in 5 people may fall ill, but there are certainly ways to minimize one's risk via hand-washing and social distancing techniques. In a really severe pandemic, though, the advice would be to "shelter-in-place," isolating oneself and one's family in one's home until the danger passes. During such a pandemic the Department of Homeland Security uses as a key planning assumption that the American population would be asked to self-quarantine for up to 90 days per wave of the pandemic.

KF: Why do we have this potential disaster on our hands?

MG: The industrialization of the chicken and pork industries is thought to have wrought these unprecedented changes in avian and swine influenza. No one even got sick from bird flu for eight decades before a new strain, H5N1, started killing children in 1997. Likewise, in pigs here in the U.S. swine flu was totally stable for 8 decades before a pig-bird-human hybrid mutant virus appeared in commercial pig populations in 1998. It was that strain that combined with a Eurasian swine flu virus ten years later to spawn the flu pandemic of 2009, sickening millions of young people around the world.

The first hybrid mutant swine flu virus discovered in the United States was at a factory farm in North Carolina in which thousands of pregnant sows were confined in "gestation crates," veal crate-like metal stalls barely larger than their bodies. These kind of stressful, filthy, overcrowded conditions can provide a breeding ground for the emergence and spread of new diseases.

So far, only thousands of people have died from swine flu. Unless we radically change the way chickens and pigs are raised for food, though, it may only be a matter of time before a catastrophic pandemic arises.

KF: If factory farms are to blame, why have there been plagues and flu's throughout time, when factory farms were not around?

MG: Before the domestication of birds about 2,500 years ago, human influenza likely didn't even exist. Similarly, before the domestication of livestock there was no measles, small pox, and many other diseases that have plagued humanity since they were born in the barnyard about 10,000 years ago. Once diseases jump the species barrier from the animal kingdom, they can spread independently throughout human populations with often tragic consequences.

The worst plague in human history was the 1918 flu pandemic triggered by a bird flu virus that went on to kill upwards of 50 million people. The crowded, stressful, unhygienic trench warfare conditions during World War I that led to the emergence of the 1918 virus are replicated today in nearly every industrial chicken shed and egg operation. Instead of millions of vulnerable hosts to evolve within back then, we now have billions of chickens intensively confined in factory farms, arguably the Perfect Storm environment for the emergence and spread of hypervirulent, so-called "predator-type" viruses like H5N1. The 1918 virus killed about 2.5% of the people it infected, 20 times deadlier than the seasonal flu. H5N1 is now killing 60% of infected people, 20 times deadlier than the 1918 virus. So if a virus like 1918 gained easy human transmissibility, it could make the 1918 pandemic--the deadliest plague ever--look like the regular flu.

KF: Does handling or eating chicken or pork increase the chances of contracting the virus?

MG: There are certainly lots of viruses people can pick up from handling fresh meat, such as those that cause unpleasant conditions like contagious pustular dermatitis and a well-defined medical condition known as "butcher's warts." Even the wives of butchers appear to be at higher risk for cervical cancer, a cancer definitively associated with wart virus exposure. Cooking can destroy the flu virus, but the same can be said for all the bugs that sicken 76 million Americans a year. The problem is that people can cross-contaminate kitchen surfaces with fresh or frozen meat before pathogens have been cooked to death. There have been a number of cases of human influenza linked to the consumption of poultry products, but it's not clear whether swine flu viruses get into the meat. Regardless, the primary risk is not in the meat, but how meat is produced. Once a new disease is spawned from factory farm conditions it may be able spread person to person, and at that point animals--live or dead--may be out of the picture.

KF: How do we stave off this viral apocalypse?

MG: We need to give these animals more breathing room. The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, which included a former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, concluded that industrialized animal agriculture posed "unacceptable" public health risks and called for gestation crates for pigs to be banned as they're already doing in Europe, noting that "[p]ractices that restrict natural motion, such as sow gestation crates, induce high levels of stress in the animals and threaten their health, which in turn may threaten human health."

Studies have shown that measures as simple as providing straw for pigs so they don't have the immune-crippling stress of living on bare concrete their whole lives can significantly cut down on swine flu transmission rates. Such a minimal act--providing straw--yet we often deny these animals even this modicum of mercy, both to their detriment and, potentially, to ours as well.

The American Public Health Association, the largest organization of public health professionals in the world, has called for a moratorium on factory farms. In fact the APHA journal, the American Journal of Public Health, published an editorial going beyond just calling for an end to factory farms. It questioned the prudence of raising so many animals in the first place: "It is curious...that changing the way humans treat animals--most basically, ceasing to eat them or, at the very least, radically limiting the quantity of them that are eaten--is largely off the radar as a significant preventive measure. Such a change, if sufficiently adopted or imposed, could still reduce the chances of the much-feared influenza epidemic. It would be even more likely to prevent unknown future diseases that, in the absence of this change, may result from farming animals intensively and from killing them for food. Yet humanity does not consider this option....Those who consume animals not only harm those animals and endanger themselves, but they also threaten the well-being of other humans who currently or will later inhabit the planet....[I]t is time for humans to remove their heads from the sand and recognize the risk to themselves that can arise from their maltreatment of other species."

KF: That is a pretty stunning statement! I know people will wonder...."If we give up animal protein, will our immune system be compromised... or will it be enhanced?"

MG: We've known for 20 years that the immune function of those eating vegetarian may be superior to those eating meat. First published in 1989, researchers at the German Cancer Research Center found that although vegetarians had the same number of disease-fighting white blood cells compared to meat eaters, the immune cells of vegetarians were twice as effective in destroying their targets--not only cancer cells, but virus-infected cells as well. So a more plant-based diet may protect both now and in the future against animal-borne diseases like pandemic influenza.

(Michael Greger, M.D., serves as Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at The Humane Society of the United States. An internationally recognized lecturer, he has presented at the Conference on World Affairs, the National Institutes of Health, and the International Bird Flu Summit, testified before Congress, and was an expert witness in defense of Oprah Winfrey at the infamous "meat defamation" trial. His recent scientific publications in American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, Critical Reviews in Microbiology, and the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition, and Public Health explore the public health implications of industrialized animal agriculture.)

If you want to know What The Fuck WILL BE Going On---go here...

EARL NASH,  WTFG   Genius   Locator    Correspondent      

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  “It’s news to you…”  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

There are two geniuses who know What The Fuck Is Going On: George Ure and Clif High; better still these two savant seers are tuned into the wavelength of the future and they can see over the time horizon and offer us glimmers of What The Fuck WILL BE Going On.  I urge you to go to their websites:

George Ure @ http://urbansurvival.com/week.htm

Clif High @ www.halfpasthuman.com

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Climate Change

by George Ure @ http://urbansurvival.com/week.htm

Hmmm...Houston has the earliest ever snowfall a couple of weeks before Christmas, and now there 'Big Chill' is threatening the Florida orange crop and so forth.  And  now sign of what should be at least half a dozen sunspots here in solar cycle #24....until the sun kicks it up a notch, cool's the rule.  Unless you're in the part of Australia where severe flooding is going on... draught then floods.  Repeat after me: moderation.....

 

Shaky Earth,  Changes

As long as we're on 'earth changes' might as well mention that there's been some apparent recent 'locking up' of tectonic plates around the world, which reader Anthony Ring compiles from USGS data monthly and kindly shares with us:

 

 

It's a little early to be squinting at the data, but the left side is 1973 and the right side is December '09, so you can see what has been happening here lately. 

 

"Why are you going off into such drivel, Ure?"  Aha!  Here's the point:  When there's plate-lock at some level, the quakes that do occur might tend to be larger.  This is where I wheel out the Monday 7.2 shaker down in the Solomon Islands (and a 6.1 aftershock this morning) as an example and then direct your attention to the apparent increase in Magnitude 6.0 and Above quakes like so:

 

 

No, this chart doesn't include the Solomon quake which will show up in the January data.  Come back in early February for that.  Here's the supposition:  Counts go down, magnitudes seem to go up.  Why this isn't in the mainstream press isn't clear to me, but the data (just looking at rolling tends) does seem to infer that.  Yeah, I know, common sense and science have managed to distanced themselves from one another but they really should be complimentary....

---

BTW: Anthony Ring's website is www.dogstarmist.com and since he gets the predictive linguistics reports, he's got some observations down that line of thinking, too.  This assumes you know what the predictive linguistics reports are and that you've popped $10-bucks to read them yourself from www.halfpasthuman.com.  Or not; depends how much you want to be aware of what's yet to come this year. 

Will Calif. vote to legalize marijuana in 2010--"Ain't it high time?"

The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 has qualified for the California ballot next year.  Will California--"where the future is born"--lead the nation?

The Board of Equalization, California's tax regulator and the agency charged with collecting alcohol and tobacco taxes, estimates that legalizing marijuana could generate about $1.4 billion in tax revenue annually.

Further, the California Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) published a report stating that legal marijuana would free up "several tens of millions of dollars annually" in correctional and law enforcement resources, which would in turn redirect funds to more urgent matters.

As of Dec. 1, California's debt was $83.5 billion. It is the largest borrower in the country, and pays 21.3 percent more interest on its nearly-junk-rated debt than states with the highest ratings. Public school systems and social programs are feeling the brunt of the debt crisis, which has even included closing national state parks, a source of wounded pride for many outdoorsy Californians.

                                                          "Doobie, doobie, DO !!!"

Interestingly, the ballot initiative refers to local control, meaning that cities and counties can decide whether to allow regulated marijuana sales at all, and if so, how that would work.

Tax Cannabis allows for the personal consumption, possession and cultivation of cannabis by any adult over 21 throughout the state, but the business of it would be left to local jurisdictions.

Last year brought an onslaught of positive coverage of marijuana by the mainstream media. Every outlet from Fortune to Newsweek, from Rachel Maddow to CBS Morning, has dedicated ink or airtime to the subject of cannabis reform, aiding in the normalization of the most commonly used, least toxic illicit substance in America.

Tax Cannabis is betting that the time is ripe for a public education campaign around ending marijuana prohibition, although the learning curve remains steep among some.

The Tax Cannabis initiative isn't the only path to legalization weaving its way through the system. State Assembly Member Tom Ammiano has introduced a bill that effectively removes marijuana from the state's criminal and civil codes, though it reestablishes the selling or providing of cannabis to a minor as a felony with a corresponding penalty.

"Both the initiative process and the legislative process that have been introduced have been a great bully pulpit for looking at this as a serious public policy question," Ammiano told me, adding that even in conservative areas like Orange County, taxing and regulating marijuana are viewed favorably: "It's definitely on the radar."

The bill is up for review by two State Assembly committees on Jan. 12. It must pass both to make it onto the floor, but it is doubtful that the legislation will live to see Jan. 13.

The winds of marijuana change are upon us. You can smell it -- literally and figuratively -- throughout California, where weed has been legalized for medical use since 1996.

Proposition 215 succeeded due to the efforts of those who advocated the compassionate use of marijuana for patients with chronic diseases such as cancer and AIDS, but it's common knowledge that you can obtain medical marijuana for less serious afflictions like menstrual cramps, or in the case of a graduate-school student I know, thesis anxiety.

Because so many can and do consume marijuana legally, many believe the act, which would tax and regulate marijuana for adults 21 and over, will merely be catching up to a reality already in place.

The measure does not actually legalize pot as much as it absolutely decriminalizes certain marijuana offenses. (Marijuana has been "decriminalized" in California since 1975, but it still can generate a fine, an arrest and a misdemeanor charge on your record.) Tax Cannabis institutes a one-ounce personal possession limit and allows for limited personal cultivation.

Given that the vast majority of the 13 states with medical marijuana laws passed them through ballot initiatives, Stephen Gutwillig, the California state director of the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), believes that "it is far more likely that marijuana prohibition will be ended at the hands of the voters through a ballot initiative than through legislation in any state." (In addition to California, bills have been introduced in Washington, Massachusetts and New Hampshire for consideration in 2010.)

Because voter initiatives are most common in western states, this is where you are more likely to see these changes. Electorates have voted on marijuana legalization before -- in Nevada and Colorado in 2006 (both failed) and the city of Breckenridge, Colo. legalized it late in 2009 -- so the California measure isn't groundbreaking, but longtime drug reform observers believe it's the first statewide initiative with a solid chance of winning.

Since victory in pot legalization has been scarce, Tax Cannabis took many marijuana reformers by surprise with the launch of its campaign efforts in June, and then again with the success of its signature-gathering effort this month.

One such reformer is James Clark, a criminal defense attorney who helped Lee craft the language for both Tax Cannabis and a separate initiative, California Cannabis Initiative (CCI), which Clark described as "not dead in the water exactly," but acknowledged is unlikely to meet signature requirements due to lack of funding.

The CCI initiative is the most far-reaching when compared to Lee's measure and Ammiano's bill. It does not include limits to personal cultivation and possession, expunges cannabis criminal records and includes anti-discrimination protections for cannabis users.

The Tax & Regulate Cannabis 2010 campaign has just achieved a major victory in its efforts to legalize marijuana for all adults in California -- they have gathered the signatures necessary for inclusion on the state's November ballot.

"This is the next step to sane cannabis policies and the end to the hypocrisy and unjust prohibition of cannabis," pot entrepreneur Richard Lee told me Monday morning. He is the co-proponent and a major sponsor of the Tax Cannabis initiative and the force -- and money -- behind Oaksterdam, the successful marijuana-friendly section of Oakland.

This win means that Californians will be the first in the nation to decide whether they believe marijuana ought be taxed and regulated for all adults over 21, much the same way alcohol is.

The drug reform movement's eyes will be on California next year, because many advocates believe that if the initiative passes, many other states could follow.

Support for marijuana legalization is at an all-time high, with polls ranging from 44 to 52 percent national support. In California, where marijuana has been legalized for medical use since 1996, 56 percent support legalization.

It's the new "fake meat" and it's been around for 1,000 years--98 cents a pound

EARL NASH,  WTFG   Meat   Alternative   Correspondent      

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  “It’s news to you…”  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Good news for vegetarians who miss the taste and texture of meat and are tired of, or concerned about, soy-based foods—it’s “seitan” (pronounced ‘say-tahn’, not satan)

Unlike tofu, it's not slippery, bland, soy based, does not create hormone imbalances or health problems ranging from thyroid dysfunction to Alzheimer's disease to gynecomastia (aka man-boobs). It’s not a processed food and has not been soaked for 16-plus hours, ground, boiled repeatedly to make it into milk, mixed with coagulants, curdled and drained. And it does not contain the preferred coagulant among major tofu manufacturers-- calcium sulfate, aka gypsum, which is the main ingredient in plaster-of-Paris.

 [WARNING:  If you have problems with gluten, DO NOT EAT seitan!]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The following text from:  http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/144914/juicy_and_tender%2C_seitan_is_quite_possibly_the_best_fake_meat_--_but_there_is_a_downside/

“Unlike tofu, the next big thing can be whipped up in any household kitchen rather easily, for super-cheap. I've made some of the next big thing myself. More on that later, but to construct a high-protein, low-fat pound of it cost me 98 cents.

Definition: Although it is made from wheat, seitan has little in common with flour or bread. Also called “wheat meat”, “wheat gluten” or simply “gluten”, seitan becomes surprisingly similar to the look and texture of meat when cooked, making it a popular meat substitute. Seitan is also high in protein, making it a popular protein source for vegetarians.

The next big thing is not actually new. It's been around for over 1,000 years, having been developed by Buddhist monks in Asia who knew about tofu but sought other alternatives in accordance with the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, in which the Buddha tells the Bodhisattva Kashyapa:

"Those who keep close company with me must not eat meat. Even if, in a gesture of faith, almsgivers provide them with meat, they must shrink from it as they would shrink from the flesh of their own children" — because, the Buddha asserted, "eating meat destroys the attitude of great compassion."

In China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, the next big thing is ubiquitous, fashioned into astounding facsimiles such as mock duck and goose with stippled "skin."

The next big thing — which got its big 20th-century boost from the macrobiotic movement, whose pioneer George Ohsawa gave this ancient food a new Japanese name meaning "protein-made" —made of wheat gluten.

Having been a vegetarian for 20 years, a hypochondriac for 30, and a cheapskate for more, I decided to try making seitan at home. Having always been lazy as well, I picked the easy route, buying vital wheat gluten in bulk and mixing it in a bowl with water, ginger, pepper, garlic and soy sauce.

Some recipes say to add paprika for color but I was afraid the result would taste like Chinese goulash. Five minutes of easy kneading yielded a dough log, which I sliced into cutlet shapes. Slipped into barely-boiling broth, the slices simmered for an hour. Watching them bounce and bonk against each other heartily, nearly doubling in size as they absorbed liquid, solidifying as they cooked, I marveled through the steam. After that hour, they bathed in the broth, in the fridge, all night.

And lo. Now they were firmer still, looking for all the world like little steaks. I poked them stoutly, yet my finger did not penetrate. I dropped one from a height onto a cutting board. It did not break. It bounced. Bite me, it said. I did. Savory juices rushed into my mouth. (Next time I might add that paprika after all, or cumin or allspice or liquid smoke.)

Bitten, the newborn seitan put up a bit of a fight: ever so slightly fluffy, yet requiring the use of molars. Yes. Within the week it would be curried "lamb"; it would be sweet-and-sour "pork"; on Kaiser rolls it would be "hamburgers." It cost only about a buck. I can keep doing this. My life was transformed overnight. It's like having unearthed the esoteric secret of the universe, a treasure that will vanquish hunger, an alchemy for all but the gluten-sensitive.

Anneli Rufus is the author of several books, most recently The Scavenger's Manifesto (Tarcher Press, 2009). Read more of Anneli's writings on scavenging at scavenging.wordpress.com.

 Definition: Although it is made from wheat, seitan has little in common with flour or bread. Also called “wheat meat”, “wheat gluten” or simply “gluten”, seitan becomes surprisingly similar to the look and texture of meat when cooked, making it a popular meat substitute. Seitan is also high in protein, making it a popular protein source for vegetarians. Asian restaurants often use seitan as a vegetarian mock meat, and seitan is also the base for several commercially available products such as Tofurky deli slices.

Seitan can be prepared by hand using either whole wheat flour or vital wheat gluten and is made by rinsing away the starch in the wheat, leaving a high-protein gluten behind. Although not as common as tofu, seitan is quickly gaining popularity, particularly in vegetarian restaurants, due to its ability to take on the texture and flavor of meat. Prepared seitan can be found in the refrigerated section of most health food stores.

RECIPES: http://vegetarian.about.com/lr/seitan_recipes/55392/1/

 

OTHER MEAT ALTERNATIVE FOODS:

QUINOA

Your kitchen is not complete without highly nutritious quinoa. Known as the “Mother Grain” of the Andes, quinoa (pronounced KEE-nwah) comes complete with all necessary amino acids, high iron content, a delicious nutty flavor, and a faster cooking time than rice. Try it hot with steamed vegetables, cold in a salad, or in the ingenious form of quinoa pasta.

VEGGIE BURGER (YES)

Even carnivores love a veggie burger – they no longer resemble sorry imitations of meat that isn’t that choice to begin with. Amy’s Kitchen makes the tastiest organic ones, in my opinion, but there are dozens out there. Rare is the veggie burger that really tastes like meat, but I personally wouldn’t want that, anyway. You’ve got a variety of flavors to choose from, each typically made with protein-rich soy and organic vegetables.

ALMONDS

King of the nuts, the amazing almond is high in both protein and calcium (it’s a great low-carb snack with only a few grams of non-fiber carbohydrate per serving). Try >almond milk or Living Tree’s naturally sweet organic almond butter, too. For a real splurge, go for raw.

YOGURT

With a 4,500 year history, organic yogurt is here to stay. Boasting protein, calcium and living cultures, organic yogurt with fruit slices makes for a healthy and filling breakfast or dessert. Buy plain, organic, full-fat yogurt – it’s the best for >your body. Low-fat yogurt is highly processed and flavored yogurts are very high in sugar and/or high-fructose corn syrup.

TEMPEH

O.K., technically this is tofu. But wait! Organic and non-GMO tempeh, made from fermented soy beans and rice, is high in fiber and protein. It has a nutty flavor and tastes amazing in a stir-fry or on a kabob. I recommend Henry’s Gourmet. It’s much nuttier and chewier than >tofu, which will satisfy a serious protein craving.

LEGUMES

Legumes, like lentils, black beans and chickpeas are filling and high in protein and fiber. A Middle Eastern staple, hummus is simple to make, making it one of my favorite foods!

CHEESE

Though it’s not a vegan option, you can find cheeses that come from animals raised humanely (look for artisan or organic choices). Cheddar and mozzarella top the list of organic cheeses for protein content. I recommend raw dairy if you’re comfortable with that. Here’s a cheddar cheese scone recipe – simply substitute whole-grain flour.