How FBI Entrapment Is Inventing 'Terrorists' - and Letting Bad Guys Off the Hook

Mark McGowan, Patricia Faella, Marcus Faella, Kent McLellan, Jennifer McGowan, Dustin Perry, Richard Stockdale and Christopher Brooks of the American Front arrested in Florida.
REUTERS/Osceola County Jail /LANDOV

Rolling Stone
May 15, 2012



This past October, at an Occupy encampment in Cleveland, Ohio, "suspicious males with walkie-talkies around their necks" and "scarves or towels around their heads" were heard grumbling at the protesters' unwillingness to act violently. At meetings a few months later, one of them, a 26-year-old with a black Mohawk known as "Cyco," explained to his anarchist colleagues how "you can make plastic explosives with bleach," and the group of five men fantasized about what they might blow up. Cyco suggested a small bridge. One of the others thought they’d have a better chance of not hurting people if they blew up a cargo ship. A third, however, argued for a big bridge – "Gotta slow the traffic that's going to make them money" – and won. He then led them to a connection who sold them C-4 explosives for $450. Then, the night before the May Day Occupy protests, they allegedly put the plan into motion – and just as the would-be terrorists fiddled with the detonator they hoped would blow to smithereens a scenic bridge in Ohio’s Cuyahoga Valley National Park traversed by 13,610 vehicles every day, the FBI swooped in to arrest them.
Right in the nick of time, just like in the movies. The authorities couldn’t have more effectively made the Occupy movement look like a danger to the republic if they had scripted it. Maybe that's because, more or less, they did.
The guy who convinced the plotters to blow up a big bridge, led them to the arms merchant, and drove the team to the bomb site was an FBI informant. The merchant was an FBI agent. The bomb, of course, was a dud. And the arrest was part of a pattern of entrapment by federal law enforcement since September 11, 2001, not of terrorist suspects, but of young men federal agents have had to talk into embracing violence in the first place. One of the Cleveland arrestees, Connor Stevens, complained to his sister of feeling "very pressured" by the guy who turned out to be an informant and was recorded in 2011 rejecting property destruction: "We're in it for the long haul and those kind of tactics just don't cut it," he said. "And it's actually harder to be non-violent than it is to do stuff like that." Though when Cleveland's NEWS Channel 5  broadcast that footage, they headlined it "Accused Bomb Plot Suspect Caught on Camera Talking Violence."
In all these law enforcement schemes the alleged terrorists masterminds end up seeming, when the full story comes out, unable to terrorize their way out of a paper bag without law enforcement tutelage. ("They teach you how to make all this stuff out of simple household items," one of the kids says on a recording quoted in the FBI affidavit about a book he has just discovered, The Anarchist Cookbook. Someone asks him how much it says explosives cost. "I'm not sure," he responds, "I just downloaded it last night.") It’s a perfect example of how post-9/11 fear made law enforcement tactics seem acceptable that were previously beyond the pale. Previously, however, the targets have been Muslims; now they’re white kids from Ohio. And maybe you could argue that this is acceptable, if the feds were actually acting out of a good-faith assessment of what threats are imminent and which are not. But that's not what they're doing at all. Instead, they are arrogating to themselves a downright Orwellian power – the power to deploy the might of the State to shape a fundamental narrative about which ideas Americans must be most scared of, and which ones they should not fear much at all, independent of the relative objective dangerousness of the people who hold those ideas.


Who will pay for the massive US public debt? 30 percent of those with incomes above $10 million audited.

MyBudget360
May 18, 2012



Now that tax seasons is mostly finished for your average American and people can exhale and take a breather, some interesting data is released by the IRS.  Audit data is fascinating because it highlights that in terms of those getting an audit, the more you make the more likely you are to be audited.  It is useful to get a sense of how this plays out.  The IRS is unlikely to audit the average American making $25,000 a year because in reality, the cost and return of going after this group is so minimal.  As the famous bank robber Willie Sutton once replied to a reporter as to why he robbed banks, “because that’s where the money is.”  The government is running lean and as many of you know, carrying over a $15 trillion in public debt is starting to become a burden.  Debt ceiling talks are already out in the open as if we are already preemptively ready to spend more money we don’t have.  Ultimately all Americans will need to shoulder some piece of this debt via cuts or tax increases and that is the painful reality.
IRS audit data
The IRS data is fascinating in terms of where they focus the large portion of their audits:
Individual Income Tax Returns Examined by Size of Adjusted Gross Income
Source:  Sober Look
You’ll notice that once a $200,000 income is hit, the risk of being audited increases.  I also found it interesting that those reporting no adjusted income had a higher chance of being audited than those who made between $25,000 and $500,000.  This is probably another group that will show up on the radar.  However, those with incomes of $10 million or more have a 30 percent chance of being audited.  Yet as we know many Americans are simply struggling to get by with a per capita income of $25,000.  Our total credit market debt is simply off the charts and over three times annual GDP:
total-credit-market-debt-owed
Some serious challenges are coming online in the near future:
-1.  Unemployment benefits are phasing out and expiring for many
-2.  2001 and 2003 tax cuts set to expire
-3.  The debt limit will be reached again by the end of the year
-4.  Payroll tax cut will expire and increase from 4.2% to 6.2%
-5.  AMT will drop from $74,000 or higher to $45,000 or higher.  This will make it harder for middle class families to use deduction in effect creating a tax increase
Many purists would argue that we either go full on tax increases or full on cuts.  The reality is, the economy is incredibly weak.  Most of the economy is still fueled by subsidies via home owner mortgage interest deductions, bailout funds to banks, government backed student loans, food stamps, and unemployment insurance.  In other words, transfer payments are holding many people from full on economic disaster.  For example, 1 out of 3 retirees relies on Social Security for most of their post-work income.

Spain Crisis Rocks Europe, Bank Credit Ratings Downgraded


Ben Chu
The Independent 
May 18, 2012
The flames of the eurozone crisis leapt higher yesterday, as fears spread about the state of the Continent’s most vulnerable banks.
Shares in the Spanish lender, Bankia, plummeted 30 per cent at one stage in trading, following a report that customers had withdrawn €1bn in deposits since the Madrid government was forced to part-nationalise the bank last week.
Bankia released a statement in the afternoon saying that the deposit fall was simply a seasonal effect rather than a bank run. This served to stabilise the share price, but the lender still ended up losing 14 per cent of its value.

THE VETTING - EXCLUSIVE - OBAMA'S LITERARY AGENT IN 1991 BOOKLET: 'BORN IN KENYA AND RAISED IN INDONESIA AND HAWAII'

Breitbart
May 17, 2012



Note from Senior Management:
Andrew Breitbart was never a "Birther," and Breitbart News is a site that has never advocated the narrative of "Birtherism." In fact, Andrew believed, as we do, that President Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961.
Yet Andrew also believed that the complicit mainstream media had refused to examine President Obama's ideological past, or the carefully crafted persona he and his advisers had constructed for him.
It is for that reason that we launched "The Vetting," an ongoing series in which we explore the ideological background of President Obama (and other presidential candidates)--not to re-litigate 2008, but because ideas and actions have consequences.
It is also in that spirit that we discovered, and now present, the booklet described below--one that includes a marketing pitch for a forthcoming book by a then-young, otherwise unknown former president of the Harvard Law Review
It is evidence--not of the President's foreign origin, but that Barack Obama's public persona has perhaps been presented differently at different times.
***
Breitbart News has obtained a promotional booklet produced in 1991 by Barack Obama's then-literary agency, Acton & Dystel, which touts Obama as "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii." 
The booklet, which was distributed to "business colleagues" in the publishing industry, includes a brief biography of Obama among the biographies of eighty-nine other authors represented by Acton & Dystel. 
It also promotes Obama's anticipated first book, Journeys in Black and White--which Obama abandoned, later publishing Dreams from My Father instead.
Obama’s biography in the booklet is as follows (image and text below):
Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.  The son of an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister, he attended Columbia University and worked as a financial journalist and editor for Business International Corporation.   He served as project coordinator in Harlem for the New York Public Interest Research Group, and was Executive Director of the Developing Communities Project in Chicago’s South Side. His commitment to social and racial issues will be evident in his first book, Journeys in Black and White.
The booklet, which is thirty-six pages long, is printed in blue ink (and, on the cover, silver/grey ink), using offset lithography. It purports to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of Acton & Dystel, which was founded in 1976.
Front cover (outside) - note Barack Obama listed in alphabetical order
Front cover (inside)
Jay Acton no longer represents Obama. However, Jane Dystel stilllists Obama as a client on her agency's website.
According to the booklet itself, the text was edited by Miriam Goderich, who has since become Dystel's partner at Dystel & Goderich, an agency founded in 1994. Breitbart News attempted to reach Goderich by telephone several times over several days. Her calls are screened by an automated service that requires callers to state their name and company, which we did. She never answered.
The design of the booklet was undertaken by Richard Bellsey, who has since closed his business. Bellsey, reached by telephone, could not recall the exact details of the booklet, but told Breitbart News that it "sounds like one of our jobs, like I did for [Acton & Dystel] twenty years ago or more."
The parade of authors alongside Obama in the booklet includes politicians, such as former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill; sports legends, such as Joe Montana and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; and numerous Hollywood celebrities. 
The reverse side of the page that features Barack Obama includes former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader and early-1990s "boy band" pop sensation New Kids On the Block.
Acton, who spoke to Breitbart News by telephone, confirmed precise details of the booklet and said that it cost the agency tens of thousands of dollars to produce. 
He indicated that while "almost nobody" wrote his or her own biography, the non-athletes in the booklet, whom "the agents deal[t] with on a daily basis," were "probably" approached to approve the text as presented.
Dystel did not respond to numerous requests for comment, via email and telephone. Her assistant told Breitbart News that Dystel "does not answer questions about Obama."
The errant Obama biography in the Acton & Dystel booklet does not contradict the authenticity of Obama's birth certificate. Moreover, several contemporaneous accounts of Obama’s background describe Obama as having been born in Hawaii.
The biography does, however, fit a pattern in which Obama--or the people representing and supporting him--manipulate his public persona.
David Maraniss's forthcoming biography of Obama has reportedly confirmed, for example, that a girlfriend Obama described in Dreams from My Father was, in fact, an amalgam of several separate individuals. 
In addition, Obama and his handlers have a history of redefining his identity when expedient. In March 2008, for example, he famouslydeclared: "I can no more disown [Jeremiah Wright] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother." 
Several weeks later, Obama left Wright's church--and, according to Edward Klein's new biography, The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House, allegedly attempted to persuade Wright not to "do any more public speaking until after the November [2008] election" (51).
Obama has been known frequently to fictionalize aspects of his own life. During his 2008 campaign, for instance, Obama claimed that his dying mother had fought with insurance companies over coverage for her cancer treatments. 
That turned out to be untrue, but Obama has repeated the story--which even the Washington Post called "misleading"--in a campaign video for the 2012 election.
The Acton & Dystel biography could also reflect how Obama was seen by his associates, or transitions in his own identity. He is said, for instance, to have cultivated an "international" identity until well into his adulthood, according to Maraniss.
Regardless of the reason for Obama's odd biography, the Acton & Dystel booklet raises new questions as part of ongoing efforts to understand Barack Obama--who, despite four years in office remains a mystery to many Americans, thanks to the mainstream media.
Larry O'Connor contributed to this report.


Servicemen steal and sell nearly $2 million in guns

AFP Photo / Tim Sloan
RT News
May 17, 2012



Investigators have tracked down around $1.8 million in missing US military weaponry, and no, the loot wasn’t just left behind in barracks and bunkers. Instead it went directly to street gangs.
The results of a nearly two-year-old probe established to investigate missing military gear reveals that nearly $2 million worth of assault rifles, night-vision goggles and other guns and gadgets were pilfered by servicemen from within the Armed Forces and then sold illegally both through local outlets to gangs and on the Internet to residents of foreign countries.
So far more than 60 people have been implicated in the undercover sting, which began nearly two years ago by officers with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Along the way, federal agencies as diverse as the Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and even the FBI have been brought into the mix.
The results of the investigation were unearthed on Tuesday this week by reporters at the Daily News in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Local agencies including the N.C. State Bureau of Investigations, the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office and the Jacksonville Police Department have been named in the probe as well.
“The case is still active and ongoing in partnership with several other local, state and federal law enforcement agencies,” Ed Buice, a public affairs officer for NCIS in Quantico, Va., explains to the paper. “I can’t go into much detail.”
And although information is sparse for now, those willing to speak say that it wasn’t just a vast, international conspiracy at play. For some, the whole exchange might have just been fun and games.
“We’re talking about sophisticated, hi-tech flashlights that cost the government up to $800 per unit. The temptation and ease with which to steal and sell them, for some, is irresistible,” a government official familiar with the operations adds to the Daily News.
Adding to the report, the NCIS’ Buice says that the results of the probe suggest that the under-the-radar weapons trade was becoming “a growing problem.” That problem, reveals the investigation, spread as far east as China. At other times, military personal were taking to eBay, Craiglist and yard sales to unload gear that either wasn’t sold overseas or pawned off on local gangs.

Obama Eligibility: NJ Activists Take Heart In AZ SOS Action


America's self-proclaimed toughest sheriff, Joe Arpaio, says that members of a cold-case posse have found probable cause to believe that the Obama birth certificate released last April is a fake.
Terry Hurlbut
Essex County Conservative Examiner
May 17, 2012
The New Jersey Obama eligibility challengers took heart when an Arizona official asked Hawaii to verify Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

Arizona raises Obama eligibility stakes
Yesterday evening, Jerome R. Corsi at WND reported the latest Obama eligibility action. Ken Bennett, Secretary of State for Arizona, sent a letter to several members of the Surprise, AZ Tea Party. This same group first sent the petition to Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County to investigate Barack Obama’s White House birth certificate document. More recently, they wrote Mr. Bennett to ask him not to list Barack Obama on the election ballot this fall.

Bennett, writing back, told the Tea Party people that he had asked the State of Hawaii to verify the information on the birth certificate. He noted that Hawaii’s own laws force it to yield such information to officials in other States who ask for it in the course of their work.

US shadow war in Horn of Africa revealed by blogger

Editor's Note: In a book written by Zbigniew brzezinski called The Grand Chess Board, the globalists' agenda for domination of the Middle East (part of Eurasia) is apparent:    
"How America 'manages' Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources." (p.31) The Grand Chessboard
If you will take notice, he mentions the fact that control over Eurasia by the U.S., "would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination" as well. See my article: Iran: The Next Pawn in 'The Grand Chessboard' of the New World Order

Credit:AFCENT NEWS TEAM
Wired.co.uk
May 16, 2012



An innocuous-seeming US Air Force press release. A serendipitous satellite image in Google Earth. Snapshots from a photographer on assignment at a Spanish air base. The crash of an Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle fighter-bomber in the United Arab Emirates. These are some of the fragments of information that Italian aviation blogger David Cenciotti has assembled to reveal the best picture yet of the Pentagon's secretive war in the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa.
In a series of blog posts over the two weeks since 11 May, Cenciotti hasdescribed in unprecedented detail the powerful aerial force helping wage Washington's hush-hush campaign of air strikes, naval bombardments and commando raids along the western edge of the Indian Ocean, including terror hot spots Yemen and Somalia. Cenciotti outlined the deployment of eight F-15Es from their home base in Idaho to the international air and naval outpost at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, north of Somalia.
Over the years there have been hints of the F-15s' presence in East Africa, but "their actual mission remains a (sort-of) mystery," Cenciotti writes. Based on the evidence, he proposes that the twin-seat fighter-bombers -- one of the Air Force's mainstay weapon systems in Afghanistan -- are dropping bombs on al-Qaida-affiliated militants in Yemen. If true, that means the US intervention in the western Indian Ocean is far more forceful, and risky, than previously suggested.
Ten years ago the Air Force openly acknowledged the initial F-15E rotation in Djibouti, but since then the flying branch has released few details. New officialinformation on the Indian Ocean aerial armada has emerged only after airplanes crashed. An accident involving an Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone in the Seychelles late 2011 forced the Pentagon to admit it was building a drone base on the island nation. Reporters followed the Seychelles lead to uncover additional Reaper bases in Yemen and Ethiopia. Armed drones operated by the CIA and the military have killed scores of militants in Somalia and Yemen understeadily loosening rules of engagement.
Similarly, the deaths of four American airmen in a crash in Djibouti in February 2012 confirmed the involvement of the secretive U-28 spy plane in the escalating intervention.
The F-15Es carry more bombs and fly much faster than the Cessna-size, propeller-driven Reapers. Where the long-endurance drones are persistent and patient, the twin-engine Strike Eagles are fast-reacting and powerful. "When you need to quickly reach a distant target and hit it with a considerable payload, you might find a Strike Eagle a better platform," Cenciotti explains. On the other hand, "air strikes with conventional planes are considered less respectful of the local nation's sovereignty than drones' attacks," he adds. "This could be the reason for keeping the eventual F-15E involvement in the area a bit confidential."

Common ingredient in soft drinks causes damage to brain function

Editor's Note: This is why I have stopped drinking soda for around 2years now....



D. Holt
Natural News
May 17, 2012
The use of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has been long associated with fatty liver disease, diabetes and increases in obesity, but a new study has investigated its effects on the brain. HFCS is an inexpensive ingredient added to fast food and fizzy drinks and is 6 times sweeter than sugar obtained from sugar cane.
The study by UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) studied the effect of HFCS on rats, who have similar brain chemistry to humans. The rats were trained in a maze for five days before the experimental diet began. The maze had only one exit and contained visual clues so as to help the rats remember the way through the maze to the exit. The rats were separated into two groups, both given HFCS solution as drinking water but one had food fortified with omega-3′s. The rats were then tested in the maze 6 weeks after the training period.
It was found that the rats that had been given the omega-3′s were much better at finding their way through the maze, indicating that they had remembered the way. However, the rats that had been given only the HFCS had a much reduced ability to find the exit. On closer inspection of the rats brain tissue, it was found that insulin had little or no effect on brain cells in those from the HFCS group. The authors of the study suspect that consuming too much HFCS could block the ability of insulin to regulate how brain cells store sugar for energy requires for processing thoughts.
Professor Gomez-Pinilla said, “The brain cells had trouble signaling each other, disrupting the rats ability to think clearly and recall the route they’d learned six weeks earlier. We’re concerned about high-fructose corn syrup that is added to manufactured food products as a sweetener and preservative. We’re not talking about naturally occurring fructose in fruits, which also contain important antioxidants.”
Protection from HFCS by consuming Omega-3
The Omega 3 fatty acids protected the rat’s brains from the effects of the HFCS, meaning a less degraded performance in memory. As rats have a similar brain chemistry to humans, it may be good practice to consume more omega-3′s in our diet. Good, natural sources of omega-3′s are nuts, seeds and oily fish, such as salmon, mackerel and sardines. Supplements are also available.
HFCS has long been reported on various health websites and even in the mainstream media as being unhealthy for your body. But this study also shows it is equally detrimental to your mind as well. Why is it that an ingredient that is known to have so many harmful effects can still be used in such high quantities in some of the most popular drinks and foods? It is because it is cheap to produce and makes more profit for the corporations that use it. Yet again, profit is the most important goal, even at the expense of the health of consumers. Many of these consumers are, as a result, ending up grossly obese and too mentally impaired to know why their health is suffering.
Sources for this article include:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk
http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-000140000000000000000.html
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/high-fructose-corn-syrup/AN01588

About the author:
D Holt is currently involved in research in the UK into the mechanisms involved in healing due to meditation, hypnosis and other ''spiritual'' healers and techniques. Previous work has included investigations into effects of meditation on addiction, the effects of sulphites on the digestive system and the use of tartrazine and other additives in the restaurant industry. new blog is now available athttp://tinyurl.com/sacredmeditationtwitter @sacredmeditate

What Happened at the Latest "Con-Con" Hearing

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!!
Report By Teri Owens
May 17, 2012
News Alert



Friends:

Yesterday afternoon 10 of us went down to the state house to give testimony at the 3rd hearing on HJR 3 in the State Government and Elections Committee,

Before the hearing began we were notified that whereas HJR 3 was scheduled for a "potential vote," that was taken off the table.

The first proponent testimonial was via Skype by Nick Dranias a "constitutional scholar" from the Goldwater Institute.  Mr. Dranius simply repeaterd the same errant assertions that were debunked in the JBS's reprint: Renewed Push for a Con-Con and NDRA: The New Push for a Con-Con.  Committee Chairman do not usually allow testimony via Skype, so the fact that this was allowed speaks to their determination to get this resolution passed out of committee.  It also opens the door for those of us who opposed the measure to arrange for witnesses who are unable to fly out here for testimony.  We are working to get either former Oklahoma Senator Randy Brogdon or current Oklahoma Rep Charles Key to testify via Skype at the next hearing.

Seven of our members and supporters then testified.  Two of them reserved their testimony for the next hearing.  This served to allow us to hear the remainder of the proponent testimony and prepare to address their assertions.

After our opposition testimony, four college students from Dayton who are affiliated with the Young Republicans testified in support of the National Debt Relief Amendment.  These students only spoke regarding the amendment itself and were unaware/uneducated on the method being used to promote this amendment.  In speaking with one of them prior to the hearing it was clear that they did not even read the resolution because they didn't understand or even have knowledge of what a con-con was.
Finally, former Senator Olafson from North Dakota was flown in a second time and permitted to speak last on the issue.  Senator Olafson is the national spokesperson for Restoring Freedom, which is the organization promoting the NDRA.
We have been working on 4 key representatives that we believe we can influence to convince them to vote no on this issue in committee.  We have a firm commitment from 2 of them and a soft commitment from a third to vote no.  We just need three to vote no to defeat this resolution.

We anticipate the chairman will work quickly to hold another hearing on this and will be in touch as soon as we get word.

Meanwhile, to learn more about this issue or to prepare for testimony at the next hearing, a wealth of information is available at http://www.stoptheconcon.com.  And as always, continue to call the members of the committee and encourage them to vote no.
Teri Owens
This report was sent out from Teri Owens