SOBT Newsletters and Articles
Small print! Disclaimer!!
Articles are not necessarily the opinion of all the staff, but we feel they should be read and you decide!
Articles are not necessarily the opinion of all the staff, but we feel they should be read and you decide!
Who is really voting and how are they recruited - pdf.
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Submitted by one of our staff editors to a forum and that member asked
for it to be included here as well (EXCELLENT READ!)
Many that post on this forum have done a lot of research into the current state of our country, they are not just posting anything they read. They post out of a deep love for this country and concern for their fellow American to try to inform. A police state is not unrealistic in order to be sure Americans do not resist the NAU.
For any that have not read Robert Pastors speech on June 9, 2005 to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee , you should. In one part ( page 5) he states the reason NAFTA isn't working is the huge disparity in wages between Mexico, US & Canada..is it by chance our country has been opened up to illegals and our laws not enforced? Is it by chance the living wage in the United States has dropped? I think not....Does it not concern some that discussions are underway to integrate Mexico & Canada into the Dept of Homeland Security?
The following information is directly from the CFR web site, you read it & compare to events taking place in this country & you decide. If you feel I am a neokook.....well I guess I will need to run to the store and get foil.
Build a North American economic and security community by 2010. To enhance security, prosperity, and opportunity for all North Americans, the chairs propose a community defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter.
Create the institutions necessary for a North American community. The chairs propose annual summit meetings among the three countries and the creation of a North American Advisory Council to prepare for and implement the decisions made at the summits.
Enhance North American competitiveness with a common external tariff. Over the last decade, nations around the world, from China to India to Latin America to the expanded membership of the European Union, have become increasingly integrated into the global market. To meet these challenges to North American competitiveness, the chairs recommend that the three governments negotiate a common external tariff on a sector-by-sector basis at the lowest rate consistent with multilateral obligations: "Unwieldy rules of origin, increasing congestion at ports of entry, and regulatory differences among the three countries raise our costs instead of reducing them."
Develop a border pass for North Americans. The chairs propose a border pass, with biometric indicators, which would allow expedited passage through customs, immigration, and airport security throughout North America. "The governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States should commit themselves to the long-term goal of dramatically reducing the need for physical scrutiny of traffic, travel, and trade within North America."
Adopt a unified Border Action Plan. The three governments should "strive toward a situation in which a terrorist trying to penetrate our borders will have an equally hard time doing so no matter which country he elects to enter first. "First steps should include: harmonized visa and asylum regulations; joint inspection of container traffic entering North American ports; and synchronized screening and tracking of people, goods, and vessels, including integrated "watch" lists. Security cooperation should extend to counterterrorism and law enforcement, and could include the establishment of a trinational threat intelligence center and joint training for law enforcement officials. On the defense front, the most important step is to expand the bi national North American Aerospace Defense Command to make it a multi-service Canada-U.S. command with a mandate to protect the maritime as well as air approaches to North America. Canada and the United States should invite Mexico to consider closer military cooperation in the future.
Narrow the development gap with Mexico. While trade and investment flows have increased dramatically, the development gap between Mexico and its two northern neighbors has widened. "Low wages and lack of economic opportunity in parts of Mexico stimulate undocumented immigration, and contribute to human suffering, which sometimes translates into violence." Mexico must increase its rate of economic growth and decide on the steps it will take to attract investment and stimulate growth. As a matter of their own national interests, the United States and Canada should assist Mexico by establishing a North American Investment Fund, designed to channel resources for the purpose of connecting the poorer parts of the country to the markets in the north.
Develop a North American energy and natural resource security strategy. Canada and Mexico are the two largest oil exporters to the United States; Canada alone supplies the United States with over 95% of its imported natural gas and 100% of its imported electricity. The three governments should expand and protect energy infrastructure, fully exploit continental reserves, conserve fossil fuels, and reduce emissions. "Regional collaboration on conservation and emissions could form the basis for a North American alternative to the Kyoto protocol."
Deepen educational ties. "Given its historical, cultural, political, and economic ties, North America should have the largest educational exchange network in the world." To that end, the chairs recommend expanding scholarship and exchange programs, developing Centers for North American Studies in all three countries, and cross-border training programs for school teachers.
Links: http://www.cfr.org/publication/7914/trinational_call_for_a_north_american_economic_and_security
_community_by_2010.html?breadcrumb=%2Fthinktank%2Fnews_releases
Speech by pastor:
http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/testimony/2005/PastorTestimony050609.pdf
The Threat Of Martial Law Is Real
By Dave Lindorff
07/27/07 "ICH http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/" -- -- The looming collapse of the US military in Iraq, of which a number of generals and former generals, including former Chief of Staff Colin Powell, have warned, is happening none too soon, as it my be the best hope for preventing military rule here at home.
From the looks of things, the Bush/Cheney regime has been working assiduously to pave the way for a declaration of military rule, such that at this point it really lacks only the pretext to trigger a suspension of Constitutional government. They have done this with the active support of Democrats in Congress, though most of the heavy lifting was done by the last, Republican-led Congress.
The first step, or course, was the first Authorization for Use of Military Force, passed in September 2001, which the president has subsequently used to claim-improperly, but so what? -that the whole world, including the US, is a battlefield in a so-called "War" on Terror, and that he has extra-Constitutional unitary executive powers to ignore laws passed by Congress. As constitutional scholar and former Reagan-era associate deputy attorney general Bruce Fein observes, that one claim, that the US is itself a battlefield, is enough to allow this or some future president to declare martial law, "since you can always declare martial law on a battlefield. All he'd need would be a pretext, like another terrorist attack inside the U.S."
The 2001 AUMF was followed by the PATRIOT Act, passed in October 2001, which undermined much of the Bill of Rights. Around the same time, the president began a campaign of massive spying on Americans by the National Security Agency, conducted without any warrants or other judicial review. It was and remains a program that is clearly aimed at American dissidents and at the administration's political opponents, since the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would never have raised no objections to spying on potential terrorists. (And it, and other government spying programs, have resulted in the government's having a list now of some 325,000 "suspected terrorists"!)
The other thing we saw early on was the establishment of an underground government-within-a-government, though the activation, following 9-11, of the so-called "Continuity of Government" protocol, which saw heads of federal agencies moved secretly to an underground bunker where, working under the direction of Vice President Dick Cheney, the "government" functioned out of sight of Congress and the public for critical months.
It was also during the first year following 9-11 that the Bush/Cheney regime began its programs of arrest and detention without charge-mostly of resident aliens, but also of American citizens-and of kidnapping and torture in a chain of gulag prisons overseas and at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay.
The following year, Attorney General John Ashcroft began his program to develop a mass network of tens of millions of citizen spies-Operation TIPS. That program, which had considerable support from key Democrats (notably Sen. Joe Lieberman), was curtailed by Congress when key conservatives got wind of the scale of the thing, but the concept survives without a name, and is reportedly being expanded today.
Meanwhile, last October Bush and Cheney, with the help of a compliant Congress, put in place some key elements needed for a military putsch. There was the overturning of the venerable Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which barred the use of active duty military inside the United States for police-type functions, and the revision of the Insurrection Act, so as to empower the president to take control of National Guard units in the 50 states even over the objections of the governors of those states.
Put this together with the wholly secret construction now under way--courtesy of a $385-million grant by the US Army Corps of Engineers to Halliburton subsidiary KBR Inc--of detention camps reportedly capable of confining as many as 400,000 people, and a recent report that the Pentagon has a document, dated June 1, 2007, classified Top Secret, which declares there to be a developing "insurgency" within the U.S, and which lays out a whole martial law counterinsurgency campaign against legal dissent, and you have all the ingredients for a military takeover of the United States.
As we go about our daily lives--our shopping, our escapist movie watching, and even our protesting and political organizing-we need to be aware that there is a real risk that it could all blow up, and that we could find ourselves facing armed, uniformed troops at our doors.
Bruce Fein isn't an alarmist. He says he doesn't see martial law coming tomorrow. But he is also realistic. "Really, by declaring the US to be a battlefield, Bush already made it possible for himself to declare martial law, because you can always declare martial law on a battlefield," he says. "All he would need would be a pretext, like another terrorist attack on the U.S."
Indeed, the revised Insurrection Act (10. USC 331-335) approved by Congress and signed into law by Bush last October, specifically says that the president can federalize the National Guard to "suppress public disorder" in the event of "national disorder, epidemic, other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident." That determination, the act states, is solely the president's to make. Congress is not involved.
Fein says, "This is all sitting around like a loaded gun waiting to go off. I think the risk of martial law is trivial right now, but the minute there is a terrorist attack, then it is real. And it stays with us after Bush and Cheney are gone, because terrorism stays with us forever." (It may be significant that Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate for president, has called for the revocation of the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq, but not of the earlier 2001 AUMF which Bush claims makes him commander in chief of a borderless, endless war on terror.)
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has added an amendment to the upcoming Defense bill, restoring the Insurrection Act to its former version-a move that has the endorsement of all 50 governors--but Fein argues that would not solve the problem, since Bush still claims that the U.S. is a battlefield. Besides, a Leahy aide concedes that Bush could sign the next Defense Appropriations bill and then use a signing statement to invalidate the Insurrection Act rider.
Fein argues that the only real defense against the looming disaster of a martial law declaration would be for Congress to vote for a resolution determining that there is no "War" on terror. "But they are such cowards they will never do that," he says.
That leaves us with the military.
If ordered to turn their guns and bayonets on their fellow Americans, would our "heroes" in uniform follow their consciences, and their oaths to "uphold and defend" the Constitution of the United States? Or would they follow the orders of their Commander in Chief?
It has to be a plus that National Guard and Reserve units are on their third and sometimes fourth deployments to Iraq, and are fuming at the abuse. It has to be a plus that active duty troops are refusing to re-enlist in droves-especially mid-level officers.
If we are headed for martial law, better that it be with a broken military. Maybe if it's broken badly enough, the administration will be afraid to test the idea.
Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His n book of CounterPunch columns titled "This Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage Press. Lindorff's newest book is "The Case for Impeachment",
co-authored by Barbara Olshansky.
He can be reached at: dlindorff@yahoo.com
By Dave Lindorff
07/27/07 "ICH http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/" -- -- The looming collapse of the US military in Iraq, of which a number of generals and former generals, including former Chief of Staff Colin Powell, have warned, is happening none too soon, as it my be the best hope for preventing military rule here at home.
From the looks of things, the Bush/Cheney regime has been working assiduously to pave the way for a declaration of military rule, such that at this point it really lacks only the pretext to trigger a suspension of Constitutional government. They have done this with the active support of Democrats in Congress, though most of the heavy lifting was done by the last, Republican-led Congress.
The first step, or course, was the first Authorization for Use of Military Force, passed in September 2001, which the president has subsequently used to claim-improperly, but so what? -that the whole world, including the US, is a battlefield in a so-called "War" on Terror, and that he has extra-Constitutional unitary executive powers to ignore laws passed by Congress. As constitutional scholar and former Reagan-era associate deputy attorney general Bruce Fein observes, that one claim, that the US is itself a battlefield, is enough to allow this or some future president to declare martial law, "since you can always declare martial law on a battlefield. All he'd need would be a pretext, like another terrorist attack inside the U.S."
The 2001 AUMF was followed by the PATRIOT Act, passed in October 2001, which undermined much of the Bill of Rights. Around the same time, the president began a campaign of massive spying on Americans by the National Security Agency, conducted without any warrants or other judicial review. It was and remains a program that is clearly aimed at American dissidents and at the administration's political opponents, since the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would never have raised no objections to spying on potential terrorists. (And it, and other government spying programs, have resulted in the government's having a list now of some 325,000 "suspected terrorists"!)
The other thing we saw early on was the establishment of an underground government-within-a-government, though the activation, following 9-11, of the so-called "Continuity of Government" protocol, which saw heads of federal agencies moved secretly to an underground bunker where, working under the direction of Vice President Dick Cheney, the "government" functioned out of sight of Congress and the public for critical months.
It was also during the first year following 9-11 that the Bush/Cheney regime began its programs of arrest and detention without charge-mostly of resident aliens, but also of American citizens-and of kidnapping and torture in a chain of gulag prisons overseas and at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay.
The following year, Attorney General John Ashcroft began his program to develop a mass network of tens of millions of citizen spies-Operation TIPS. That program, which had considerable support from key Democrats (notably Sen. Joe Lieberman), was curtailed by Congress when key conservatives got wind of the scale of the thing, but the concept survives without a name, and is reportedly being expanded today.
Meanwhile, last October Bush and Cheney, with the help of a compliant Congress, put in place some key elements needed for a military putsch. There was the overturning of the venerable Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which barred the use of active duty military inside the United States for police-type functions, and the revision of the Insurrection Act, so as to empower the president to take control of National Guard units in the 50 states even over the objections of the governors of those states.
Put this together with the wholly secret construction now under way--courtesy of a $385-million grant by the US Army Corps of Engineers to Halliburton subsidiary KBR Inc--of detention camps reportedly capable of confining as many as 400,000 people, and a recent report that the Pentagon has a document, dated June 1, 2007, classified Top Secret, which declares there to be a developing "insurgency" within the U.S, and which lays out a whole martial law counterinsurgency campaign against legal dissent, and you have all the ingredients for a military takeover of the United States.
As we go about our daily lives--our shopping, our escapist movie watching, and even our protesting and political organizing-we need to be aware that there is a real risk that it could all blow up, and that we could find ourselves facing armed, uniformed troops at our doors.
Bruce Fein isn't an alarmist. He says he doesn't see martial law coming tomorrow. But he is also realistic. "Really, by declaring the US to be a battlefield, Bush already made it possible for himself to declare martial law, because you can always declare martial law on a battlefield," he says. "All he would need would be a pretext, like another terrorist attack on the U.S."
Indeed, the revised Insurrection Act (10. USC 331-335) approved by Congress and signed into law by Bush last October, specifically says that the president can federalize the National Guard to "suppress public disorder" in the event of "national disorder, epidemic, other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident." That determination, the act states, is solely the president's to make. Congress is not involved.
Fein says, "This is all sitting around like a loaded gun waiting to go off. I think the risk of martial law is trivial right now, but the minute there is a terrorist attack, then it is real. And it stays with us after Bush and Cheney are gone, because terrorism stays with us forever." (It may be significant that Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate for president, has called for the revocation of the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq, but not of the earlier 2001 AUMF which Bush claims makes him commander in chief of a borderless, endless war on terror.)
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has added an amendment to the upcoming Defense bill, restoring the Insurrection Act to its former version-a move that has the endorsement of all 50 governors--but Fein argues that would not solve the problem, since Bush still claims that the U.S. is a battlefield. Besides, a Leahy aide concedes that Bush could sign the next Defense Appropriations bill and then use a signing statement to invalidate the Insurrection Act rider.
Fein argues that the only real defense against the looming disaster of a martial law declaration would be for Congress to vote for a resolution determining that there is no "War" on terror. "But they are such cowards they will never do that," he says.
That leaves us with the military.
If ordered to turn their guns and bayonets on their fellow Americans, would our "heroes" in uniform follow their consciences, and their oaths to "uphold and defend" the Constitution of the United States? Or would they follow the orders of their Commander in Chief?
It has to be a plus that National Guard and Reserve units are on their third and sometimes fourth deployments to Iraq, and are fuming at the abuse. It has to be a plus that active duty troops are refusing to re-enlist in droves-especially mid-level officers.
If we are headed for martial law, better that it be with a broken military. Maybe if it's broken badly enough, the administration will be afraid to test the idea.
Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His n book of CounterPunch columns titled "This Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage Press. Lindorff's newest book is "The Case for Impeachment",
co-authored by Barbara Olshansky.
He can be reached at: dlindorff@yahoo.com
By: Devvy
August 6, 2007
© 2007 - NewsWithViews.com
"From Dan Rather's five-minute 1988 televised report on computerized vote fraud. Mr. Rather asked computer expert Howard J. Strauss of Princeton University: "Realistically, could the fix be put on in a national election?" Mr. Strauss responded, "Get me a job with the company that writes the software for this program. I'd have access to one third of the votes. Is that enough to fix a general election?" Strauss also said, "When it comes to computerized elections, there are no safeguards. It's not a door without locks, it's a house without doors."
Frustration in this country is growing faster than the latest bumper crop of poppy seeds in Afghanistan. The whole litany of abuses against we the people are presented and dissected every day in this country by articulate, informed, highly intelligent writers from all walks of life, many with impressive academic credentials, many from hard working Americans who have done their research and are very afraid of what's just over the horizon. Dr. Steven Yates' recent column is a fine example. Citizen activism is at an all time fever pitch and the federal machine, like a cornered rabid dog, is watching and waiting for the right moment to strike. It's not an option for the global elitists who run this country via control of the 50 state governors, Congress and White House, to allow we the people to not only expose their evil agenda, but to actually stand up and fight.
And, fight we must, but we need to expend our time and energies into efforts that will bring results. I've received several emails from individuals who are actively trying to gear up recall efforts against Marxist Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress. From their lips to God's ears, except the U.S. Constitution does not allow recall of Congress; the Founding Fathers felt the ballot box would oust any sewage that needed dumping. Little could they imagine how electronic voting machines would end up stealing our elections since the 1960s. Many will recall the fierce battle over states passing term limits back in the 1990s. Recall the "Republican Revolution" back in 1994 and the "Contract with America" sold by serial adulterer and liar, Newt Gingrich, who was caught on tape exposing how he fooled desperate Americans fed up with a Democrat majority in control of Congress for 40 years:
August 6, 2007
© 2007 - NewsWithViews.com
"From Dan Rather's five-minute 1988 televised report on computerized vote fraud. Mr. Rather asked computer expert Howard J. Strauss of Princeton University: "Realistically, could the fix be put on in a national election?" Mr. Strauss responded, "Get me a job with the company that writes the software for this program. I'd have access to one third of the votes. Is that enough to fix a general election?" Strauss also said, "When it comes to computerized elections, there are no safeguards. It's not a door without locks, it's a house without doors."
Frustration in this country is growing faster than the latest bumper crop of poppy seeds in Afghanistan. The whole litany of abuses against we the people are presented and dissected every day in this country by articulate, informed, highly intelligent writers from all walks of life, many with impressive academic credentials, many from hard working Americans who have done their research and are very afraid of what's just over the horizon. Dr. Steven Yates' recent column is a fine example. Citizen activism is at an all time fever pitch and the federal machine, like a cornered rabid dog, is watching and waiting for the right moment to strike. It's not an option for the global elitists who run this country via control of the 50 state governors, Congress and White House, to allow we the people to not only expose their evil agenda, but to actually stand up and fight.
And, fight we must, but we need to expend our time and energies into efforts that will bring results. I've received several emails from individuals who are actively trying to gear up recall efforts against Marxist Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress. From their lips to God's ears, except the U.S. Constitution does not allow recall of Congress; the Founding Fathers felt the ballot box would oust any sewage that needed dumping. Little could they imagine how electronic voting machines would end up stealing our elections since the 1960s. Many will recall the fierce battle over states passing term limits back in the 1990s. Recall the "Republican Revolution" back in 1994 and the "Contract with America" sold by serial adulterer and liar, Newt Gingrich, who was caught on tape exposing how he fooled desperate Americans fed up with a Democrat majority in control of Congress for 40 years:
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Working to SECURE OUR BORDERS
BTW! "Godless" was one of the best books I have ever read!
NEW!