Early in 1998, Jack Abramoff was in Imelda Marcos’s condominium in Manila, advising the former first lady of the Philippines on how to overturn a Supreme Court order that she go to prison for graft. His proposal: She should promise the country’s leaders that she would not run for election, loan half of an alleged slush fund to the ruling party and threaten a public relations campaign in which Abramoff, as her lobbyist, would “destroy” the government’s reputation.
The plot was classic Abramoff, involving the trademark elements of his Washington lobbying: a transfer of money, a promise of political support and a threat of harm to those who stood in his clients’ way. It worked in Manila, he writes in his new memoir, “Capitol Punishment.” (He notes in the book that Marcos called the plan “brilliant.”)
It’s not every day that a veteran Washington insider — one who, at the zenith of his career, was the city’s highest-paid lobbyist — writes a 300-page account of his political triumphs, serial lawbreaking and unethical conduct, all of which ended in his imprisonment for fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy. Abramoff’s status as perhaps the premier modern symbol of Washington’s corruption by monied interests makes his reflections on the events surrounding his disgrace especially tantalizing.
The book’s aim, according to its dust jacket, is to pull “back the curtain on K Street,” show “the dirty underbelly of America’s government” and prescribe reforms meant to undercut the political influence of private, monied interests. It achieves these goals in part, confirming in a highly personal narrative what some reporters on his trail (myself included) unearthed in the mid-2000s, while adding some fresh accounts of how he manipulated the legislative process.
With the drums of war beating ever louder against Iran, the U.S. military has quickly moved to reestablish a war footing in the Persian Gulf. The preparations for a looming military confrontation thus continue apace.
According to the Washington Post(1/27), “The Pentagon is rushing to send a large floating base for commando teams to the Middle East.” As the paper reports, the USS Ponce, a 40-year old amphibious transport dock previously set for decommission, will now be converted into a special ops hub, and then likely sent to the Persian Gulf.
The Pentagon, the Post reports, is seeking to retrofit the USS Ponce on an accelerated timeline. In fact, the military has gone ahead and waived “normal procurement rules because any delay presented a ‘national security risk.’”
At the same time, the Wall Street Journal reports (1/28) the Pentagon has notified Congress that it will divert an additional $82 million to refine the Massive Ordinance Penetrator (MOP). (The MOP is a 30,000-pound “bunker-buster” bomb “specifically designed to take out the hardened fortifications built by Iran and North Korea to cloak their nuclear programs.”)
The decision to seek an upgrade in the MOP reportedly comes after a series of tests revealed that the ordinance remains incapable of destroying certain Iranian nuclear facilities, such as the enrichment site at Fordow, located near the holy city of Qom. (Fordow is buried deep within the mountainside, below 260 feet of rock and soil).
The Journal also reports that, “The decision to ask now for more money to develop the weapon was directly related to efforts by the U.S. military’s Central Command to prepare military options against Iran as quickly as possible.” And thus much the same as with the retrofitting of the USS Ponce, the Pentagon has decided to sidestep the normal budgetary request process in seeking additional funds for the MOP. As Journal notes, “The Pentagon deems the MOP upgrades to be a matter of some urgency.”
Meanwhile, it was also reported Friday that the joint Israel-U.S. war games—deemed Austere Challenge 12—have been rescheduled for October 2012. The games were originally scheduled for spring, but were postponed on January 15 for reasons that were unclear. But with Austere Challenge 12 now set to take place in October, U.S. military officers are scheduled to begin arriving in Israel this coming week in preparation for the largest joint operation ever conducted between the two armed forces.
These latest military maneuvers come on the heels of an announced U.S. troop build-up in the region revealed earlier this month. As the Los Angeles Times first reported (1/12), the build-up, including the stationing of 15,000 U.S. troops in Kuwait, is “intended as a quick-reaction and contingency force in case a military crisis erupts in the standoff with Tehran over its suspected nuclear weapons program.”
Even a year ago, weeks could go by between major Disclosure events. Now there are multiple signals per week. Are they trying to tell us something? Does a bear sit in the woods?
BUILDING UP TO SOMETHING
In the last few months, things have gotten really wonderful for the Disclosure crowd — to the point where I don’t even have enough time to try to track and write about all of it, while juggling my other responsibilities. This includes:
Multiple, blatant UFO sightings, some of which shut down entire airports;
Major press conferences with multiple eyewitnesses announcing that nuclear missile installations have been powered down by ‘flying saucers’ which otherwise were not aggressive, and may in fact have our best interests in mind;
A huge number of “life is highly abundant in the universe” scientific articles;
This is definitely not ‘smoke and mirrors.’ This is a clear, deliberate and concerted effort. And it’s building up to something.
“THE EVENT”
Among all of these various elements, the NBC television show “The Event” stands out as particularly provocative. Here you have a television show about a black President — who looks and sounds just like Obama — stumbling into the truth of human ETs soon after he takes office.
In this story, some 97 human-looking ETs crashed in a spaceship in Alaska in the 1940s, and were held hostage at ‘Camp Inostranka’ ever since. The president learns this truth, meets the people and plans an open Disclosure in a live national press conference.
Right before he discloses these secrets to humanity, he suffers a 9/11-style attack by a hijacked passenger airliner. The plane then pops through a wormhole right before it hits the ground and ends up in a remote desert, apparently by ET influence.
All the passengers onboard the plane initially survive, but they then end up dying — or so we think. The analysis of the bodies at the crash site shows that they appeared to have been running from something — perhaps a beam weapon.
The government plans on ‘distressing’ the bodies to make it look like they all died in a fiery crash, which they intend to fabricate for a cover-up.
THE WEIRD VIRUS
Then, in very disturbing zombie-like fashion, the bodies all end up re-animating in a secret military bunker. At first they seem to be fine, but then they all start hemorrhaging blood from their noses and mouths.
We learn that they have a weird virus, which they were given by the ET opposition leader — and they will be dead within 24 hours unless the President frees all the ET detainees at Inostranka, in exchange for the vaccine.
Fighting for the lives of the survivors, the president wrestles with the opposition leader, who claims he will use this same weapon on whole cities of Americans if the 97 detainees are not freed.
The president ends up getting the antidote by threatening to execute all of the ETs if the opposition leader does not produce the serum first.
THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE
This Monday night’s show effectively picks up at this point in the storyline — and I’m leaving quite a bit out of it here. Though it is a bit clumsy at certain points, and I don’t find the portrayal of the president and his entourage particularly believable, the overall execution is quite good.
There does appear to be a lot of fear-mongering about human-looking ETs in this show, such as their apparent willingness to use terrorist tactics to get their way.
Nonetheless, it also seems clear that we are being given a message that they are not all bad people — only a small number of them.
Furthermore, the seemingly positive female leader of the ETs (who is obviously cast to look and sound very similar to the heroic female president in Battlestar Galactica) alludes to an upcoming ‘Event’ without elaboration at this point in the story.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
In the title, the second “E” in “Event” is reversed. This highlights the ‘V’ in the middle — as in the previous show ‘V’, which was also about human-looking ETs. It also encourages us to pick out the word ‘EVE.’
Remember that this is all part of a Processed Release of Information (PRI) program, and the underlying body of information to be disclosed has been in place for thousands of years. I discuss this in my radio show with William Henry, linked below.
I feel it is safe to assume that in this TV series, “The Event” will involve a certain amount of cataclysmic activity on the Earth. It should also upgrade our DNA at the same time — leading to a new humanity.
A new Eve.
This would then allow the show to go in the direction of “Heroes” and other such programs where people begin developing ‘powers’.
If that’s really where this is going, then “The Event” may well be the most blatant, in-your-face, one-stop-shop Disclosure mechanism ever put out by the media — at least thus far.
Another quite interesting and revealing Ben post here. It sounds from what he reports here, that we are in the last act of this dark old global soap opera. Ben gives some of the history behind much of this, from his understanding, and lays it out for all to see. The fact that he puts so much of this type of information out there tells me he knows he is “protected” (whatever that means) and that this dark-oriented group is pretty much out of it, power-wise. Others have likewise reported such (SaLuSa, Montague Keen, Wanderer).
As always, suggest using your Higher Discretion as you read.
Highlights
…911… attacks…was an esoteric battle in a war for control of the global financial system… the 311 nuclear tsunami attack against Japan was also part of this battle.
…A critical mass of military, law-enforcement, banking and other officials has been identified and is about to arrest the culprits behind these and other attacks.
…global…accounts…backed by the pooled assets of many of the world’s governments… meant to be used to finance peaceful development… were mostly misspent on war by a group of misguided oligarchs concentrated in the financial, military, oil and (to a lesser extent) pharmaceutical industries.
…the top cabalists include George Bushes Jr.&Sr, Henry (Heinz) Kissinger, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Senator J. Rockefeller, Paul Wolfowitz, Frank Carlucci, Donald Rumsfeld, Tony Blair and the Pope.
When U.S. President John F. Kennedy agreed with the 77-nation non-aligned group to create US treasury dollars to finance the development of the third world…, he was killed.
The problem with this fake war on terror is that it required the rest of the world to continue financing the US military industrial complex.
When Putin kicked the cabalists out of Russia, suddenly the cabal’s control over oil, and thus their stranglehold over much of the world’s economy, began to collapse.
However, the entire [cabal] plan began to crumble after 2006 when the Chinese began to stop buying US Treasury certificates.
…in June of 2009…two Japanese carrying $134.5 billion of various bonds were seized in Italy and had [them] taken… the trail led to cabal members located at the very top of the Western power structure.
Until this mess can be sorted out, a freeze has been put out at the very highest levels of the global financial system. This is what is ultimately behind the recent financial turmoil seen around the world.
The best intelligence available says…many cabal members will be put in jail while [thoss] judged to have sincerely worked with the greater good in mind, will be allowed to stay free…
There will also be some sort of announcements to the global public at large about what has been going on. Humanity will then enter uncharted waters.
Although a decade of research has proven a high level cabal at the top of the Western power structure was behind the 911 terror attacks, few realize the attack was an esoteric battle in a war for control of the global financial system. Fewer still realize the 311 nuclear tsunami attack against Japan was also part of this battle. However, a critical mass of military, law-enforcement, banking and other officials has identified and is about to arrest the culprits behind these and other attacks. The search for the ultimate culprits led to something known as the global collateral accounts and a high level group of conspirators that illegally took them over. These accounts are backed by the pooled assets of many of the world’s governments and were meant to be used to finance peaceful development. Instead, they were mostly misspent on war by a group of misguided oligarchs concentrated in the financial, military, oil and (to a lesser extent) pharmaceutical industries.
According to a US intelligence group that has been on this case for some time, the top cabalists include George Bushes Jr.&Sr, Henry (Heinz) Kissinger, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Senator J. Rockefeller, Paul Wolfowitz, Frank Carlucci, Donald Rumsfeld, Tony Blair and the Pope. Of course there were many thousands of working below them or else above them in the shadows who were in on the scheme. The intelligence and police agencies of the world have now obtained the codes for the global collateral accounts and can trace in detail who has been using these funds, and for what purpose, ever since they were hijacked in the 1950’s.
The Pentagon plans to expand its global network of drones and special-operations bases in a fundamental realignment meant to project U.S. power even as it cuts back conventional forces.
The plan, to be unveiled by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday and in budget documents next month, calls for a 30% increase in the U.S. fleet of armed unmanned aircraft in the coming years, defense officials said. It also foresees the deployment of more special-operations teams at a growing number of small “lily pad” bases across the globe where they can mentor local allies and launch missions.
The utility of such tools was evident on Wednesday after an elite team—including members of Navy SEAL Team Six, the unit that killed Osama bin Laden—parachuted into Somalia and freed an American woman and Danish man held hostage for months.
The strategy reflects the Obama administration’s increasing focus on small, secret operations in place of larger wars. The shift follows the U.S. troop pullout from Iraq in December, and comes alongside the gradual U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, where a troop-intensive strategy is giving way to an emphasis on training Afghan forces and on hunt-and-kill missions.
Defense officials said the U.S. Army plans to eliminate at least eight brigades while reducing the size of the active duty Army from 570,000 to 490,000, cuts that are likely to hit armored and heavy infantry units the hardest. But drone and special-operations deployments would continue to grow as they have in recent years.
At the same time, the Army aims to accentuate the importance of special operations by preserving light, rapidly deployable units such as the 82nd and the 101st Airborne divisions.
“What we really want is to see the Army adopt the mentality of special forces,” said a military officer who advises Pentagon leaders.
The new strategy would assign specific U.S.-based Army brigades and Marine Expeditionary units to different regions of the world, where they would travel regularly for joint exercises and other missions, using permanent facilities and the forward-staging bases that some advisers call lily pads.
Marines, for example, will use a new base in Darwin, Australia, as a launch pad for Southeast Asia, while the U.S. is in talks to expand the U.S. presence in the Philippines—potential signals to China that the U.S. has quick-response capability in its backyard, defense officials said.
Yet many of the proposed bases will be secret and could temporarily house small commando teams, the officials said.
There are going to be times when action is called upon, like Tuesday night, when it will be clearly advantageous to be forward deployed,” a military official said, referring to the Somalia operation. “On the other hand, most of the time it will help you to be there to develop host nation or regional security.”
Republican presidential contenders have seized on planned cuts to accuse President Barack Obama of weakening the U.S. military. While national-security issues aren’t seen as a weakness for Mr. Obama in the coming presidential campaign, lawmakers could try to block his proposals on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Obama often emphasizes the value of special-operations raids like the one that killed bin Laden to fend off criticism.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, sees the bases and drones as part of an effort to offset cutbacks that some critics say will undercut the U.S.’s global dominance. The Pentagon says it will have more than enough force to fight at least one major troop-intensive ground war.
The Pentagon still will invest in some big-ticket items, including the F-35 stealth fighter, as a counterweight to rising powers, including China—although the department is poised to announce this week that it is going to slow procurement of the new plane, said defense officials.
Many Obama administration officials see last year’s international military intervention in Libya as a model for future conflicts, with the U.S. using its air power up front while also relying on its allies, and on local forces to fight on the ground.
“You are looking at the military try to find new ways to stay globally engaged. When you are smaller, you have to be smarter,” said a U.S. official.
Mr. Panetta alluded in a speech on Friday to plans to invest more heavily in drones and special forces, saying the U.S. wanted to develop an “innovative rotational presence” in Latin America, Africa and elsewhere.
Mr. Panetta is scheduled to outline elements of the department’s $525 billion budget for fiscal 2013, including the first of $487 billion in cuts over 10 years, at the Pentagon Thursday.
The plan, however, envisions a 10% increase in special-operations forces over the next four years, from 63,750 this year to 70,000 by 2015, U.S. officials said. Mr. Panetta also will announce a buildup in the drone fleet in the coming years, U.S. officials said, following growth under predecessor Robert Gates.
The Air Force now operates 61 drone combat air patrols around the clock, with up to four drones in each patrol. Mr. Panetta’s plan calls for the military to have enough drones to comfortably operate 65 combat air patrols constantly with the ability to temporarily surge to 85 combat air patrols, officials said.
The new emphasis represents a victory for Vice President Joe Biden and others in the White House who argued for reducing troops in Afghanistan and relying more on special-operations forces and local allies.
The strategy is similar to ideas that circulated through the military in the years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and were championed by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Mr. Rumsfeld advocated building facilities in Eastern Europe and other locations as he pushed to remake the Army into a lighter, more expeditionary force. Mr. Rumsfeld declined a request for an interview.
The use of secretive commando teams and small, low-profile bases is appealing to the Obama administration because of the reduced costs, said a U.S. official briefed on the plans. They also risk less apprehension by host governments.
Military leaders are looking into the creation of new special-operations bases in Turkey and eastern Jordan, near the border with Iraq. U.S. officials said. Those will supplement a network of airstrips and other facilities in the region that house drones and operatives used for missions in Yemen, Somalia and beyond.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” ~ H. L. Mencken
~the Russians are wise!!!…cars/trucks make for a better shield than human bodies loll~jude
MOSCOW | Sun Jan 29, 2012 3:32pm EST
(Reuters) – Critics of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin drove in their hundreds around central Moscow on Sunday in cars trailing white ribbons, a symbol of Russia’s protest movement, staging a mobile demonstration to demand fair elections.
Opposition leaders are trying to maintain momentum after tens of thousands of people angry over alleged election fraud and Putin’s plan to return to the Kremlin in a March vote turned out last month for the biggest protests of his 12-year rule.
“This has an important symbolic meaning. We have arrived at the stage when we don’t want to be vassals any more,” said opposition activist Ilya Ponomaryov, who picked up hitchhikers with white ribbons in his purple sedan.
Organizers said the demonstration also aimed to advertise protest marches planned for next Saturday, exactly one month before the March 4 presidential election.
“We want to show our unity. This is very visible. This is preparatory work for February 4, when there will be even more people than on Sakharov Avenue,” Ponomaryov said, referring to the site of a December 24 rally that drew tens of thousands.
Polls indicated Putin will regain the presidency, extending his rule for at least six more years. He was president from 2000-2008 and is widely believed to have been holding Russia’s reins for his protégé, President Dmitry Medvedev.
Some drivers resorted to white construction tape, printer paper, grocery bags and even white lace as they cruised around Moscow’s Garden Ring road. Organizers said more than 3,000 motorists took part, while police put the number at about 300.
In the minus 15 C (5 F) chill, many pedestrians applauded or waved white handkerchiefs from the sidewalks in solidarity. One vehicle had a life-sized straw figure with a picture of Putin’s face strapped to its hood.
Cars are a strong symbol not only of status but of personal freedom in Russia and the right to choice in a country where even ownership of a tiny Soviet-made Lada was a luxury in the communist era and foreign cars were virtually non-existent.
The protests, provoked by widespread suspicions of fraud favouring Putin’s ruling party in a December 4 parliamentary election, have revealed dismay among Russians.
Middle-class city dwellers in particular feel they have no say in politics and that Putin’s decision to return to the Kremlin was thrust upon them.
“We have to fight for our rights… We have to show our strength so that maybe people will see us and come to the February 4th protest,” said Nadezhda, 26, who works for a state TV station. Nadezhda, who declined to give her last name, said her station had told employees not to take part in Sunday’s protest.
“I feel cheated by the vote,” Yevgeny Starshov, 23, a student at a state school of public administration, said of the parliamentary election.
“We have to do something to change the country for the better, not through riots or some kind of revolution but through such peaceful demonstrations to fight for more fair elections.”
Thousands of Putin’s supporters rallied on Saturday in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, to back his election bid.
(Writing by Steve Gutterman; editing by David Stamp)
Last month, at the massive Fort Meade army installation, Private First Class Bradley Manning, who grew in Crescent, OK, finally had his “day in court” – actually, seven days of a military “Article 32 hearing.”
The outcome of those hearings is that Manning will stand trial for “aiding the enemy,” among other charges, which could put him in prison for the rest of his life, and possibly result in a death sentence.
Any resemblance to actual justice or due process in Manning’s Article 32 hearing was purely coincidental.
As most of the world now knows, Manning has been accused of making thousands of allegedly “secret” military videos, diplomatic cables, and other documents available to the media outlet, Wikileaks.
Before any evidence had even been presented to a court, Manning had already been punished beyond the bounds of the U.S. Constitution. He’d been subjected to months of torturous conditions of confinement, including sleep deprivation, complete isolation from human contact and forced nudity, before being transferred to reportedly more humane conditions in the wake of global outrage.
The evidence we saw presented at the Article 32 hearing does not justify keeping Private Manning in custody, much less continuing these proceedings for a formal trial.
The Article 32 hearing is roughly analogous to a “probable cause hearing” afforded to criminal defendants in civilian courts, but with significant differences. It is actually an “investigative process,” where the government is permitted to unveil its purported evidence in the presence of an Investigative Officer [IO], rather than a judge.
Motions to suppress potentially illegally-seized and questionable evidence were not heard [unlike civilian cases], essentially allowing the government to present its version of the case against Manning undeterred by due process considerations.
The most serious charge against Manning is violation of Article 104 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, “Aiding the Enemy,” claiming that Manning did “knowingly give intelligence to the enemy, through indirect means.”
The identity of the “enemy” was revealed on the last day of the hearing to be “Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and ‘classified’ enemies.”
SUPERPOWER is a comprehensive film that asks tough questions and goes behind the scenes of America’s national security apparatus and military actions. Far from a conspiracy film about the dangers of government secrets and regime change, this well-balanced film straddles the philosophical divide and allows viewers to understand the US quest for global dominance through economic and military strategy that is exposed through review of historical events, personal interviews, and analysis of US foreign policy.
Featuring interviews with Michel Chossudovsky, Bill Blum, Chalmers Johnson and Noam Chomsky, among many others.
SUPERPOWER has won a number of awards, including the 5th Annual Hollywood F.A.M.E. Award for Documentary of the Year 2011 as well as the 2011 32nd Annual People’s Choice Bronze Telly Award.
~so this would mean that everyone would be double taxed…taxed on earned money and then taxed again when it is invested…So nice for the MSM to uphold this stance~jude
Early in 1998, Jack Abramoff was in Imelda Marcos’s condominium in Manila, advising the former first lady of the Philippines on how to overturn a Supreme Court order that she go to prison for graft. His proposal: She should promise the country’s leaders that she would not run for election, loan half of an alleged slush fund to the ruling party and threaten a public relations campaign in which Abramoff, as her lobbyist, would “destroy” the government’s reputation.
