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Monday, June 29, 2009

RED ALERT: The Total Takeover Of America Enters Its Final Phase

Full frontal assault on every aspect of freedom kicks into high gear as the elite twist the knife into the rotting carcass of the United States

RED ALERT: The Total Takeover Of America Enters Its Final Phase 290609top2
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, June 29, 2009


The wholesale looting of America and the transfer of wealth and power over to a private banking elite who are setting up a world government, along with the complete obliteration of any remaining freedom to protest, resist, or even speak out against this agenda, is now entering its final phase as numerous different pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fall into place and portray a clear picture of tyranny.


We are about to sound the death knell for the United States if every one of the following attacks on our liberty, free speech, sovereignty, and right to not be ruled over by an unelected banking dictatorship is not fiercely opposed and crushed.


RED ALERT 1

The passage of the “Climate Bill” by the House and its likely approval by the Senate represents the entrĂ©e for the complete and total subjugation of any freedoms we had left and the beginning of nightmare regulation and suffocating control over every aspect of our personal lives by millions of green stasi tasked with enforcing impossible to attain goals of 80% carbon dioxide reduction - all based on the manufactured threat of global warming.


This bill will also sink the economy and create a new great depression, effectively obliterating America’s first world status. It represents a transfer of power and wealth from both the U.S. government and the American taxpayer over to the system of world government and global regulation now being erected by means of the climate change hoax.


This is far worse than just a “new tax” as Republicans are complaining - this is the total takeover of the American economy by private banking interests through the carbon trading system.


As we have attempted to warn
, the major beneficiaries of the climate bill will be the elitists who own the carbon trading systems that will be used to handle the ‘cap and trade’ program, namely Al Gore and Maurice Strong, two figures intimately involved with a long standing movement to use the theory of man made global warming as a mechanism for profit and social engineering.


We must rally now to lobby members of Congress
who voted for the legislation and demand they change their vote before July 2nd. Failing that, we must demand that the Senate does not rubber stamp this nightmare legislation. Failing that, we must support and organize to craft more legislation based on the example of Arizona, who recently passed state Senate legislation refusing to comply with insane climate laws coming from the federal level.


RED ALERT 2

The seemingly endless economic “bailouts” represent the wholesale looting of the American taxpayer and the grand theft of trillions of dollars by private banking interests who refuse to even disclose where the money went.


Not satisfied with stealing tens of trillions, under the Obama administration’s new regulatory reform plan, the Federal Reserve is now trying to enrich itself with dictator powers that will give it complete control over the U.S. economy, handing them the authority to “regulate” and shut down any company whose activity it believes could threaten the economy and the markets.


We must rally now and lobby more members of Congress to support Ron Paul’s H.R. 1207 bill to audit the Federal Reserve and highlight the fact that Bernanke is spewing financial terrorism when he threatens an economic collapse should the Fed be opened up to scrutiny.


RED ALERT 3

Federal hate crimes legislation, which in reality would criminalize “thought crimes,” has cleared the House and now faces the Senate as S.909, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act (officially, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act).


S.909 is a direct violation of the First Amendment. It allows the federal government to prosecute people involved in “hate speech” transmitted over television, radio, and the internet. The House version of the bill states:


“Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce [radio, TV, internet] any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. (HR 1966, SEC 3, Sec. 881a)”


In other words, if a talk show host engages in “hostile” speech against a person or persons of the above mentioned federally protected group that talk show host will face federal prosecution and the prospect of a two year prison term.


The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act would similarly criminalize free speech on the Internet if it can be deemed in any way to have been “harmful” to an individual. This represents the end of political blogging and free speech on the world wide web.

If both bills are not opposed and thrown out then the First Amendment will become nothing more than a relic of a bygone age.


RED ALERT 4

The Senate bill S.787, otherwise known as the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA), would replace language in the regulatory act currently using “navigable waters” with “waters of the United States.”


What this means is that “the government would essentially be able to regulate everything from standing water in floodplains to creeks that run behind business and residences,” according to an Environmental Leader report.


This represents a complete takeover of private land and waterways by the federal government, a total assault on private property rights and a complete federalization of America’s land and water.


“In a letter to Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Barbara Boxer and ranking member James Inhofe, the American Farm Bureau Federation said that the proposed law would “extend to all water — anywhere from farm ponds, to storm water retention basins, to roadside ditches, to desert washes, to streets and gutters, even to a puddle of rainwater,” stated the letter. “For the first time in the 36-year history of the act, activities that have no impact on actual rivers and lakes would be subject to full federal regulation.”


If this bill becomes law, it will empower the federal government to seize private property on a whim, using similar powers that Communist China employed during Chairman Mao’s “great leap forward,” where landowners had their property violently confiscated and stolen by the government.


If this bill passes the Senate, private property rights in the United States are effectively null and void and the federal government would legally have the power to bulldoze families from their homes as routinely happens in Communist China.


RED ALERT 5

Amongst the myriad of assaults on the Second Amendment rights of American citizens undertaken by the Obama administration during the course of its first year in office, the one that stands out as the most alarming is the attempt to ban people who appear on the terrorist watch list from buying guns.


But isn’t stopping terrorists from buying guns surely a sensible measure to take? The problem is that the terrorist watch list, sometimes called the no fly list, is not a list of likely terrorists, it is a sprawling database of of innocent people that contains the names of over one million Americans. This is a rise of 32% since 2007 alone.


Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes, reverends, the former assistant attorney general, toddlers and children, the ACLU administrator, people with difficult names and all American names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become caught in the vast tentacle of this list, documents the ACLU.


Moreover, once a person is included on the terrorist watch list it is virtually impossible to get off it.


The terrorist watch list is an ever-expanding tool with which to deny Americans basic rights as well as to strip them completely of the Fourth Amendment.


Now it is being used to prevent law-abiding citizens from purchasing firearms. Legislation sponsored by the The Government Accountability Office seeks to “close the gap” and prevent victims of the terrorist watch list from being able to purchase firearms.


This represents a new end run around the Second Amendment and a concerted effort on behalf of the federal government to classify millions of innocent Americans as potential terrorists, thus stripping them of their Constitutional right to own firearms.


RED ALERT 6

Our right to protest against any of the egregious assaults on the Constitution that are listed above is itself being removed by new law enforcement and Pentagon training manuals and guidelines that define protesting as domestic terrorism.


Current Department of Defense anti-terrorism training course material states that the exercise of First Amendment rights in the U.S. constitutes terrorist activity.


Over the last few years we have documented countless examples of security assessment reports from the likes of the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, as well as police training manuals, which state that anti-war protesters, gun owners, veterans, Ron Paul supporters and those who merely cite the Constitution should be equated with extremists and domestic terrorists.


The fact that the government is now treating people who merely criticize its conduct as domestic terrorists is the clearest signal possible that the United States has entered a period in history similar to Germany in the early 1930’s and that it can only be a matter of time before the right “emergency” provides the justification for dissidents to be targeted for round-ups and mass imprisonment.


No one can claim now that this is merely a paranoid delusion - the government itself is training its law enforcement and military arms that protesters and people who use their First Amendment rights are domestic terrorists. The last time this happened was under King George shortly before the American Revolution.


ONE MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT

If we don’t stand up in unison and exercise our right to protest and free speech now more than ever before, while pointing out that the real terrorists are those who would seek to destroy the freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights, then we may find ourselves doing our protesting behind the barbed wires and the concrete blocks of an internment camp.


The hour is late, the clock stands at one minute to midnight, and the federal government, through all the examples documented above, is on the verge of implementing nothing less than a total environmental, financial and societal dictatorship and killing what once was the United States of America.


Almost identical programs of total enslavement are also being pushed through in almost every other major western country at the same time.


If we don’t stop obsessing about the minutia of life and actually concentrate on the imminent destruction of the very principles of our livelihoods, the bedrock freedoms that allow us to operate in relative comfort on a daily basis and be reasonably secure in our own homes, being able to pay our bills, put food on the table, earn money, and air our grievances when government threatens to impinge on those basic freedoms, then there will be nothing left but a rotten hollow carcass and a memory of what America once strived to be - land of the free, home of the brave - not land of the thief, home of the slave.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/red-alert-the-total-takeover-of-america-enters-its-final-phase.html

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Journalist Files Charges against WHO and UN for Bioterrorism and Intent to Commit Mass Murder

Thursday, June 25, 2009 by: Barbara Minton, Natural Health Editor


(NaturalNews) As the anticipated July release date for Baxter's A/H1N1 flu pandemic vaccine approaches, an Austrian investigative journalist is warning the world that the greatest crime in the history of humanity is underway. Jane Burgermeister has recently filed criminal charges with the FBI against the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations (UN), and several of the highest ranking government and corporate officials concerning bioterrorism and attempts to commit mass murder. She has also prepared an injunction against forced vaccination which is being filed in America. These actions follow her charges filed in April against Baxter AG and Avir Green Hills Biotechnology of Austria for producing contaminated bird flu vaccine, alleging this was a deliberate act to cause and profit from a pandemic.

Summary of claims and allegations filed with FBI in Austria on June 10, 2009

In her charges, Burgermeister presents evidence of acts of bioterrorism that is in violation of U.S. law by a group operating within the U.S. under the direction of international bankers who control the Federal Reserve, as well as WHO, UN and NATO. This bioterrorism is for the purpose of carrying out a mass genocide against the U.S. population by use of a genetically engineered flu pandemic virus with the intent of causing death. This group has annexed high government offices in the U.S.

Specifically, evidence is presented that the defendants, Barack Obama, President of the U.S, David Nabarro, UN System Coordinator for Influenza, Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, David de Rotschild, banker, David Rockefeller, banker, George Soros, banker, Werner Faymann, Chancellor of Austria, and Alois Stoger, Austrian Health Minister, among others, are part of this international corporate criminal syndicate which has developed, produced, stockpiled and employed biological weapons to eliminate the population of the U.S. and other countries for financial and political gain.

The charges contend that these defendants conspired with each other and others to devise, fund and participate in the final phase of the implementation of a covert international bioweapons program involving the pharmaceutical companies Baxter and Novartis. They did this by bioengineering and then releasing lethal biological agents, specifically the "bird flu" virus and the "swine flu virus" in order to have a pretext to implement a forced mass vaccination program which would be the means of administering a toxic biological agent to cause death and injury to the people of the U.S. This action is in direct violation of the Biological Weapons Anti-terrorism Act.

Burgermeister's charges include evidence that Baxter AG, Austrian subsidiary of Baxter International, deliberately sent out 72 kilos of live bird flu virus, supplied by the WHO in the winter of 2009 to 16 laboratories in four counties. She claims this evidence offers clear proof that the pharmaceutical companies and international government agencies themselves are actively engaged in producing, developing, manufacturing and distributing biological agents classified as the most deadly bioweapons on earth in order to trigger a pandemic and cause mass death.

In her April charges, she noted that Baxter's lab in Austria, one of the supposedly most secure biosecurity labs in the world, did not adhere to the most basic and essential steps to keep 72 kilos of a pathogen classified as a bioweapon secure and separate from all other substances under stringent biosecurity level regulations, but it allowed it to be mixed with the ordinary human flu virus and sent from its facilities in Orth in the Donau.

In February, when a staff member at BioTest in the Czech Republic tested the material meant for candidate vaccines on ferrets, the ferrets died. This incident was not followed up by any investigation from the WHO, EU, or Austrian health authorities. There was no investigation of the content of the virus material, and there is no data on the genetic sequence of the virus released.

In answer to parliamentary questions on May 20th, the Austrian Health Minister, Alois Stoger, revealed that the incident had been handled not as a biosecurity lapse, as it should have been, but as an offence against the veterinary code. A veterinary doctor was sent to the lab for a brief inspection.

Burgermeister's dossier reveals that the release of the virus was to be an essential step for triggering a pandemic that would allow the WHO to declare a Level 6 Pandemic. She lists the laws and decrees that would allow the UN and WHO to take over the United States in the event of pandemic. In addition, legislation requiring compliance with mandatory vaccinations would be put into force in the U.S. under conditions of pandemic declaration.

She charges that the entire "swine flu" pandemic business is premised on a massive lie that there is no natural virus out there that poses a threat to the population. She presents evidence leading to the belief that the bird flu and swine flu viruses have, in fact, been bioengineered in laboratories using funding supplied by the WHO and other government agencies, among others. This "swine flu" is a hybrid of part swine flu, part human flu and part bird flu, something that can only come from laboratories according to many experts.

WHO's claim that this "swine flu" is spreading and a pandemic must be declared ignores the fundamental causes. The viruses that were released were created and released with the help of WHO, and WHO is overwhelmingly responsible for the pandemic in the first place. In addition, the symptoms of the supposed "swine flu" are indistinguishable from regular flu or from the common cold. The "swine flu" does not cause death anymore often than the regular flu causes death.

Burgermeister notes that the figures for deaths reported for the "swine flu" are inconsistent and there is no clarity as to how the number of "deaths" has been documented.

There is no pandemic potential unless mass vaccinations are carried out to weaponize the flu under the guise of protecting the population. There are reasonable grounds for believing that the mandatory vaccines will be purposely contaminated with diseases that are specifically designed to cause death.

Reference is made to a licensed Novartis bird flu vaccine that killed 21 homeless people in Poland in the summer of 2008 and had as its "primary outcome measure" an "adverse events rate", thereby meeting the U.S. government's own definition of a bioweapon (a biological agent designed to cause an adverse events rate, i.e death or injury) with a delivery system (injection).

She alleges that the same complex of international pharmaceutical companies and international government agencies that have developed and released pandemic material have positioned themselves to profit from triggering the pandemic with contracts to supply vaccines. Media controlled by the group that is engineering the "swine flu" agenda is spreading misinformation to lull the people of the U.S. into taking the dangerous vaccine.

The people of the U.S. will suffer substantial and irreparable harm and injury if they are forced to take this unproven vaccine without their consent in accordance with the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, National Emergency Act, National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51, Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20, and the International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza.

In the U.S. since 2008, Burgermeister charges that those named in her allegations have implemented new and/or accelerated the implementation of laws and regulations designed to strip the citizens of the U.S. of their lawful constitutional rights to refuse an injection. These people have created or allowed provisions to remain in place that make it a criminal act to refuse to take an injection against pandemic viruses. They have imposed other excessive and cruel penalties such as imprisonment and/or quarantine in FEMA camps while barring the citizens of the U.S. from claiming compensation from injury or death from the forced injections. This is in violation of the laws governing federal corruption and the abuse of office as well as of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Through these actions, the named defendants have laid the groundwork for mass genocide.

Using the "swine flu" as a pretext, the defendants have preplanned the mass murder of the U.S. population by means of forced vaccination. They have installed an extensive network of FEMA concentration camps and identified mass grave sites, and they have been involved in devising and implementing a scheme to hand power over the U.S. to an international crime syndicate that uses the UN and WHO as a front for illegal racketeering influenced organized crime activities, in violation of the laws that govern treason.

She further charges that the complex of pharmaceutical companies consisting of Baxter, Novartis and Sanofi Aventis are part of a foreign-based dual purpose bioweapons program, financed by this international criminal syndicate and designed to implement mass murder to reduce the world's population by more than 5 billion people in the next ten years. Their plan is to spread terror to justify forcing people to give up their rights, and to force mass quarantine in FEMA camps. The houses, companies and farms and lands of those who are killed will be up for grabs by this syndicate.

By eliminating the population of North America, the international elite gain access to the region's natural resources such as water and undeveloped oil lands. And by eliminating the U.S. and its democratic constitution by subsuming it under a North American Union, the international crime group will have total control over North America.

Highlights from the complete dossier

The complete dossier of the June 10th action is a 69 page document presenting evidence to substantiate all charges. This includes:

Factual background that delineates time lines and facts that establish probable cause, UN and WHO definitions and roles, and history and incidents from the April, 2009 "swine flu" outbreak.

Evidence the "swine flu" vaccines are defined as bioweapons as delineates in government agencies and regulations classifying and restricting vaccines, and the fear of foreign countries that "swine flu" vaccines will be used for biological warfare.

Scientific evidence the "swine flu" virus is an artificial (genetic) virus.

Scientific evidence the "swine flu" was bioengineered to resemble the Spanish flu virus of 1918 including quotes from Swine Flu 2009 is Weaponized 1918 Spanish Flu by A. True Ott, Ph.D., N.D., and a Science Magazine report from Dr. Jeffrey Taubenberger et.al.

The genome sequence of the "swine flu"

Evidence of the deliberate release of the "swine flu" in Mexico

Evidence as to the involvement of President Obama that delineates his trip to Mexico which coincided with the recent "swine flu" outbreak and the death of several officials involved in his trip. Contention is made that the President was never tested for "swine flu" because he had been previously vaccinated.

Evidence as to the role of Baxter and WHO in producing and releasing pandemic virus material in Austria includes a statement from a Baxter official stating the accidentally distributed H5N1 in the Czech Republic was received from a WHO reference center. This includes delineation of evidence and allegations from Burgermeister's charges filed in April in Austria that are currently under investigation.

Evidence Baxter is an element in a covert bioweapons network

Evidence Baxter has deliberately contaminated vaccine material.

Evidence Novartis is using vaccines as bioweapons

Evidence as to WHO's role in the bioweapons program

Evidence as to WHO's manipulation of disease data in order to justify declaring a Pandemic Level 6 in order to seize control of the USA.

Evidence as to the FDA's role in covering up the bioweapons program

Evidence as to Canada's National Microbiology Lab's role in the bioweapons program.

Evidence of the involvement of scientists working for the UK's NIBSC, and the CDC in engineering the "swine flu".

Evidence vaccinations caused the Spanish killer flu of 1918 including belief of Dr. Jerry Tennant that the widespread use of aspirin during the winter that followed the end of World War I could have been a key factor contributing to the earlier pandemic by suppressing the immune system and lowering body temperatures, allowing the flu virus to multiply. Tamiflu and Relenza also lower body temperatures, and therefore can also be expected to contribute to the spread of a pandemic.

Evidence as to manipulation of the legal framework to allow mass murder with impunity.

Constitutional issues: the legality vs. illegality of jeopardizing the life, health and public good by mass vaccinations.

The issue of immunity and compensation as evidence of intent to commit a crime.

Evidence as to the existence of an international corporate crime syndicate.

Evidence of the existence of the "Illuminati".

Evidence as to the depopulation agenda of the Illuminati/Bilderbergs and their involvement in the engineering and release of the artificial "swine flu" virus.

Evidence that weaponized flu was discussed at the annual Bilderberg meeting in Athens from May 14-17, 2009, as part of their agenda of genocide, including a list of attendees who, according to a statement once made by Pierre Trudeau, view themselves as genetically superior to the rest of humanity.

Media is keeping Americans clueless about the threat they are under

Jane Burgermeister is a dual Irish/Austrian who has written for Nature, the British Medical Journal, and American Prospect. She is the European Correspondent of the Renewable Energy World website. She has written extensively about climate change, biotechnology, and the ecology.

In addition to the charges currently under investigation that she filed against Baxter AG and Avir Green Hills Biotechnology in April, she has filed charges against WHO and Baxter among others concerning a case of exploding "swine flu" vials meant for a research lab on a busy IC train in Switzerland.

In her view, control of the media by the ruling elite has allowed the world crime syndicate to further its agenda unabated while the rest of the people remain in the dark about what is really going on. Her charges are an attempt to get around this media control and bring the truth to light.

Her greatest concern is that "in spite of the fact Baxter has been caught red handed nearly triggering pandemic, they are also moving ahead, together with allied pharma companies, with supplying the vaccine for pandemics." Baxter is hurrying to get this vaccine to market some time in July.

For more information:

http://www.naturalnews.com/025760.html

http://birdflu666.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/case-about-bird-flu/

http://in.news.yahoo.com/137/20090612/1510/tls-baxter-could-have-pandemic-flu-vacci.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Health--Science/Science/Virus-mix-up-by-lab-could-have-resulted-in-pandemic/articleshow/4230882.cms

http://www.naturalnews.com/026503_pandemic_swine_flu_bioterrorism.html

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Ron Paul: Obama’s ‘goal’ is economic collapse



By David Edwards and Stephen Webster

Published: June 23, 2009


Ron Paul, the popular Republican Congressman from Texas, is ripping into the president and Congress for what he sees as their “goal” with round after round of stimulus: complete economic collapse.
“From their spending habits, an economic collapse seems to be the goal of Congress and this administration,” he said in his June 22, 2009, weekly address.
He added that Democrats who voted for the president’s war funding request, which gave an additional $106 billion to military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq — among other, unrelated items — were actually voting in favor of the wars, not just authorization of the president’s agenda.
He called it an affront to everyone who believed a vote for Obama was a vote for a peace candidate.
The president’s insistence on including an additional $108 billion in asset exchange with the International Monetary Fund is merely “buying global oppression,” he said.
Paul added that, “this [bill sent] $660 million to Gaza, $555 million to Israel, $310 million to Egypt, $300 million to Jordan and $420 million to Mexico; and some $889 million will be sent to the United Nations for so-called peace keeping missions.”
In other words, the latest U.S. war funding was an “International bailout,” he said.
The legislation’s provisions for the IMF included 100 billion dollars for the New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB), a credit instrument providing the multilateral institution with additional resources to deal with exceptional risks to the stability of the international monetary system.
They also include an expansion of the nation’s special drawing rights by five billion SDRs, adding roughly eight billion dollars to the IMF’s financial firepower.
The 100 billion dollars for the NAB acts as a credit line for the IMF in case member countries need emergency loans that exceed the institution’s resources. As such, the money is not considered an immediate budget expense.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) had proposed to strip out the IMF funds, but his measure was defeated in May by a vote of 64-30.
“Not only does sending money to the IMF hurt citizens here, evidence shows that it even hurts those it pretends to help,” Paul said. “Along with IMF loans come IMF required policy changes called ’structural adjustment programs,’ which amount to forced Keynesianism. This is the very fantasy-infused economic model that brought our own country to its knees.”
This audio is from Congressman Ron Paul’s weekly address, released June 22, 2009.

Download video via RawReplay.com

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/23/ron-paul-obamas-goal-is-economic-collapse/

Obama contemplates Executive Order for detention without charges

updated below - Update II)
When Obama first unveiled his "preventive detention" policy, many defenders praised him (and claimed he was different than Bush) because of his vow that -- as he put it -- "my Administration will work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime." But now, relying exclusively on three Obama officials speaking behind a veil of anonymity, Peter Finn and Dafner Linza of The Washington Post and ProPublica report that the White House is "crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely." TPM calls this "the latest installment in the Obama administration's tendency to mimic the Bushies on war on terror tactics." And the article itself points out the obvious: "Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war." Revealingly, the article quotes two Bush national security officials justifying the need for detention without charges.
Anonymous trial balloon articles like this one are difficult to comment on because it's obviously designed to announce that a certain policy is being considered before it's actually written, and so none of the key details is known. Would Obama's new detention powers apply only to current "War on Terror" prisoners at places like Guantanamo and Bagram, or would they also apply to future, not-yet-abducted detainees as well? Would these powers apply to detainees picked up anywhere in the world, far away from "war zones"? Would there be any judicial review or other meaningful oversight provisions so that -- even in theory -- this was something other than the unilateral, unchecked presidential power to detain indefinitely without charges? None of these important details is known (though the article notes that, under one White House proposal, "ongoing detention would be subject to annual presidential review"; the Emperor, sitting alone, will decree once a year whether they must remain in a cage).
This specific article is even worse than the usual one of its type, since it's particularly uncritical in passing along administration claims without any skepticism (I addressed each of the "justifications" for Obama's preventive detention proposal -- Obama has to do this because of what Bush did; we can't get convictions because of Bush's torture; it's common in War to do things like this, etc. etc. -- here). Worse, the article does not provide any information about the Obama officials whose mission the reporters are dutifully carrying out, so there's no way to assess their motives.
Those journalistic practices produce egregious sentences like this: "'Civil liberties groups have encouraged the administration, that if a prolonged detention system were to be sought, to do it through executive order', the official said." I'd love to know which so-called "civil liberties groups" are pushing the White House for an Executive Order establishing the power of indefinite detention. It's certainly not the ACLU or Center for Constitutional Rights, both of which issued statements vehemently condemning the proposal (ACLU's Anthony Romero: "If President Obama issues an executive order authorizing indefinite detention, he’ll be repeating the same mistakes of George Bush").
All of that said, we already know that Obama wants a system of preventive detention without charges -- because he said so explicitly in last month's "civil liberties" speech ironically and cynically delivered in front of the U.S. Constitution at the National Archives. And it's hard to imagine how he won't get what he wants: Republicans are eager to grant the President this detention authority (Sens. Tom Coburn and Lindsey Graham have both gushingly praised Obama's proposal) and, as the Bush era proved, there are always more than enough Congressional Democrats to join with the GOP caucus to enact any new system of expanded detention and surveillance powers. Absent serious public opposition (and one recent poll shows overwhelming opposition), it seems highly likely that Barack Obama will wield the power to imprison people indefinitely without charges of any kind.
* * * * *
There is one point in particular I really want to highlight about all of this:
There has now emerged a very clear -- and very disturbing -- pattern whereby Obama is willing to use legal mechanisms and recognize the authority of other branches only if he's assured that he'll get the outcome he wants. If he can't get what he wants from those processes, he'll just assert Bush-like unilateral powers to bypass those processes and do what he wants anyway. In other words, what distinguishes Obama from the first-term Bush is that Obama is willing to indulge the charade that Congress, the courts and the rule of law have some role to play in political outcomes as long as they give him the power he wants. But where those processes impede Obama's will, he'll just bypass them and assert the unilateral power to do what he wants anyway (by contrast, the first-term Bush was unwilling to go to Congress to get expanded powers even where Congress was eager to give them to him; the second-term Bush, like Obama, was willing to allow Congress to endorse his radical proposals: hence, the Military Commissions Act, the Protect America Act, the FISA Amendments Act, etc.).
That, for instance, is the precise pattern that's driving his suppression of torture photos. Two federal courts ordered the President to release the photos under the 40-year-old Freedom of Information Act. Not wanting to abide by that decision, the White House (using Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman) tried to pressure Congress to enact new legislation vesting the administration with the power to override FOIA. When House progressives blocked that bill, the White House assured Lieberman and Graham that Obama would simply use an Executive Order to decree the photos "classified" (when they are plainly nothing of the sort) and thus block their release anyway. In other words:
We'll go to court and work with Congress so we can pretend that we're not like those bad people in the last administration, but if we don't get what we want by doing that, we'll just do it anyway through unilateral Presidential action, using the theories that the last administration so helpfully left behind and which we've been aggressively defending in court.
This was also the mentality that shaped Obama's "civil liberties" speech generally and his "prolonged detention" policy specifically. In that speech, Obama movingly assured us that some of the Guantanamo detainees will be tried in a real court -- i.e., only those the DOJ is certain ahead of time they can convict. For those about whom there's uncertainty, he's going to create new military commissions to make it easier to obtain convictions, and then try some of the detainees there -- i.e., only those they are certain ahead of time they can convict there. For the rest -- meaning those about whom Obama can't be certain he'll get the outcome he wants in a judicial proceeding or military commission -- he'll just keep them locked up anyway. In other words, he'll indulge the charade that people he wants to keep in a cage are entitled to some process (a real court or military commissions) only where he knows in advance he will get what he wants; where he doesn't know that, he'll bypass those pretty processes and assert the unilateral right to keep them imprisoned anyway.
A government that will give you a trial before imprisoning you only where it knows ahead of time it will win -- and, where it doesn't know that, will just imprison you without a trial -- isn't a government that believes in due process. It's one that believes in show trials.
And here again, with this Executive Order proposal, we see this same mentality at play. According to the Post article, one motive behind the Executive Order is that "White House officials are increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may be impossible." In other words: we'll be happy to work with Congress as long as they give us what we want; if they don't, we'll just do it anyway using unilateral presidential powers. It's certainly possible -- in fact, I'd say it's likely -- that if Congress passes a preventive detention law, it will be even more Draconian than the one Obama wants. But a President who recognizes Congressional authority only when he likes the outcome -- and ignores it when he doesn't -- isn't a President who actually recognizes Congressional authority at all.
* * * * *
What ultimately matters here is that we not lose sight of the critical point: no matter the form it takes, and no matter which route is used to implement it (act of Congress or executive order), indefinite detention without charges is a repugnant and tyrannical power. Democrats and progressives had no trouble understanding that fact during the last eight years, so they should have no trouble understanding it now. As The New York Times columnist (and Obama supporter) Bob Herbert put it this week: "Policies that were wrong under George W. Bush are no less wrong because Barack Obama is in the White House." Herbert also wrote:
Americans should recoil as one against the idea of preventive detention , imprisoning people indefinitely, for years and perhaps for life, without charge and without giving them an opportunity to demonstrate their innocence.
And yet we’ve embraced it, asserting that there are people who are far too dangerous to even think about releasing but who cannot be put on trial because we have no real evidence that they have committed any crime, or because we’ve tortured them and therefore the evidence would not be admissible, or whatever. President Obama is O.K. with this (he calls it "prolonged detention"), but he wants to make sure it is carried out -- here comes the oxymoron -- fairly and nonabusively.
Proof of guilt? In 21st-century America, there is no longer any need for such annoyances.
Human rights? Ha-ha. That’s a good one.
Just look at the rationale being invoked by Obama officials to justify all of this, from the Post article:
Tawfiq bin Attash, who is accused of involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 and who was held at a secret CIA prison, could be among those subject to long-term detention, according to one senior official.
Little information on bin Attash's case has been made public, but officials who have reviewed his file said the Justice Department has concluded that none of the three witnesses against him can be brought to testify in court. One witness, who was jailed in Yemen, escaped several years ago. A second witness remains incarcerated, but the government of Yemen will not allow him to testify.
Administration officials believe that testimony from the only witness in U.S. custody, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, may be inadmissible because he was subjected to harsh interrogation while in CIA custody.
I thought Democrats (and Obama himself) believe that information obtained via "harsh interrogation" is unreliable. Isn't that supposed to be a core Democratic belief? If so, why would we want to imprison someone as "dangerous" based on unreliable information obtained using those methods? If the accusations against someone were drowned or beaten out of another person, shouldn't we consider those coerced accusations too unreliable to justify keeping the accused in a cage for years with no trial? And if they're willing to repeat the accusations in court now that they're not being tortured -- and if we have independent, non-coerced evidence to prove the accusations -- why would past abuse bar the use of their testimony (as Marcy Wheeler suggests, the real reason why we'd want to prevent witnesses who were tortured from testifying in a court seems to be "because we're covering up our own torture")?
More important, look at the mentality being expressed -- and about to be implemented -- here: there may be instances where we cannot get convictions because of witness unavailability or other logistical problems, so we'll just imprison them anyway. Does it really require any effort to demonstrate how dangerous that mentality is -- that the President will have the power to order people imprisoned wherever there are some logistical barriers to obtaining convictions? If there's one principle that can be described as fundamental to the American founding, it's that the state -- and certainly the President -- do not have the power to order people imprisoned without charges. Thomas Jefferson said that trials by jury is "the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." Why is this painfully obvious proposition still necessary to defend after the November election?
UPDATE: I posted this before, but Rachel Maddow's 7-minute commentary on Obama's preventive detention proposal was really superb and well worth watching:
On a related note: as I've written many times, the area in which Obama is replicating Bush abuses most egregiously is his embrace of Bush's secrecy obsessions. Jon Stewart last night had much to say on that topic. That Obama is adopting approaches similar to Bush's in these areas is a view that is obviously spreading -- even among Obama supporters -- and is becoming increasingly difficult to deny.
UPDATE II: Digby, today:
The irony, of course, is that the man who ran on transparency is actually turning out to be less transparent than the president he excoriated on the campaign trail for his secrecy. Bush and Cheney were pretty upfront about the fact that they believed they had the constitutional right to act in any way they saw fit, regardless of the accepted understanding of the constitution or congressional and judicial prerogatives. Bush declared "I'm the decider" and he meant it. This administration obviously believes it has that right as well --- it just pretends otherwise.
I suspect they understand that keeping the folks from losing that freedom loving, patriotic illusion of American exceptionalism is an important part of exercising American political power. And they're probably right. Bush and Cheney's biggest mistakes were in being honest about something nobody wants to know.
Relatedly, Booman -- a very enthusiastic Obama supporter -- documents multiple reasons to be suspicious of the claim that the DOJ cannot prosecute Tawfiq bin Attash (the example Obama officials cited in the Post article). That's why excessive secrecy is the linchpin of abuse of power -- it allows government officials to make dubious and misleading claims without any ability to verify them, all while they operate in the dark.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/27/preventive_detention/

Friday, June 26, 2009

Important Information and Action Alert on H.R. 2749:Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009



Please read the following information on HR 2749. The concern is that the real intent behind the food safety bill is to extend the powers of the government and though representatives in Washington write reassuring emails about the intent, the fact is that the language of the law is interpreted literally and "intent" has no meaning in most courts since the spirit of the law appears to be missing in the psyche of judges.

Alarming Provisions:
* HR 2749 would impose an annual registration fee of $500 on any "facility" that holds, processes, or manufactures food. Although "farms" are exempt, the agency has defined "farm" narrowly. And people making foods such as lacto-fermented vegetables, cheeses, or breads would be required to register and pay the fee, which could drive beginning and small producers out of business during difficult economic times.
* HR 2749 would empower FDA to regulate how crops are raised and harvested. It puts the federal government right on the farm, dictating to our farmers.
* HR 2749 would give FDA the power to order a quarantine of a geographic area, including "prohibiting or restricting the movement of food or of any vehicle being used or that has been used to transport or hold such food within the geographic area." Under this provision, farmers markets and local food sources could be shut down, even if they are not the source of the contamination. The agency can halt all movement of all food in a geographic area.
* HR 2749 would empower FDA to make random warrantless searches of the business records of small farmers and local food producers, without any evidence whatsoever that there has been a violation. Even farmers selling direct to consumers would have to provide the federal government with records on where they buy supplies, how they raise their crops, and a list of customers.
* HR 2749 charges the Secretary of Health and Human Services with establishing a tracing system for food. Each "person who produces, manufactures, processes, packs, transports, or holds such food" would have to "maintain the full pedigree of the origin and previous distribution history of the food," and "establish and maintain a system for tracing the food that is interoperable with the systems established and maintained by other such persons." The bill does not explain how far the traceback will extend or how it will be done for multi-ingredient foods. With all these ambiguities, it's far from clear how much it will cost either the farmers or the taxpayers.
* HR 2749 creates severe criminal and civil penalties, including prison terms of up to 10 years and/or fines of up to $100,000 for each violation for individuals.


5 MINUTE ACTION on HR 2749 FOOD SAFETY on Small Farms
1- Sign the "Oppose HR 2749" petition on the Fund website (www.farmtoconsumer.org) and send messages to your legislators through the petition system.
2- Contact your Representative. Use the finder tool at www.Congress.org
3. Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.
4- Send a message through the petition system at http://www.ftcldf.org/petitions_new.htm.
5- forward this message to your friends. Take my name off the forward, please.

UPDATE: JUNE 17 HEARING

A further amended version of HR 2749 passed out of the Energy and Commerce Committee on June 17. The bill next goes to House floor for a vote. HR 2749 could be amended again before the vote takes place.
The worst provisions of HR 2749 remain in the bill. The latest version does, however, reduce the amount of civil fines that can be assessed against individuals and corporations; but the fines FDA can levy under the latest amendment are still substantial.
The bill has tightened the standards under which the federal government can quarantine food in a geographic area; but the Secretary of Health and Human Services is still given the power to impose a geographic quarantine without a court order.
The latest version of HR 2749 can be found at
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090617/hr2749_ans.pdf
HR 2749 needs to be defeated!! Please take action NOW.

Monday, June 1, 2009

PLEASE READ! SEIZING POWER AND PROPERTY

Deanna Spingola
May 31, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

Governments, local, county, state or federal, are artificial entities created by the people. Governments, collective organizations, were created to protect the life, liberty and property of each and every person.

Frederic Bastiat said: “If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.”
[1]

Individuals cannot transfer rights or powers they do not inherently possess to an artificial government entity. One cannot bestow a right or privilege that one does not possess – those powers that each and every person possessed prior to the establishment of said government. Individuals may not legally plunder the property or resources of others, kill people, impose moral sanctions, or a plethora of other regulations, public and private extortions that governments regularly engage in.

Bastiat said: “Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?”
[2]

The government, constitutionally, is limited only to those functions in which an individual citizen has a right to act. The government has derived its powers from the governed. People cannot delegate powers it does not possess to its creation. John Locke explained the concept: “For nobody can transfer to another more power than he has in himself and nobody has an absolute arbitrary power over himself, or over any other, to destroy his own life, or take away the life of property of another.”
[3]
For instance, if Citizen A has a vehicle and Citizen B doesn’t, Citizen B cannot arbitrarily seize citizen A’s vehicle. That would be stealing! Citizen B, despite the fact that he may lust after Citizen A’s vehicle, cannot legally delegate a government entity to take Citizen A’s vehicle in his behalf. If the government usurps such authority, that would constitute public plundering – the road to tyranny. America is obviously well down that road, given the current pandemic public plundering sanctioned and facilitated by the government.

The vehicle analogy is also applicable to car dealerships, many of which are being illegally seized and transferred to other parties. The following letter appeared in a Florida newspaper in late May 2009: “My name is George C. Joseph. I am the sole owner of Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu, a family owned and operated business in Melbourne, Florida. My family bought and paid for this automobile franchise 35 years ago in 1974. I am the second generation to manage this business. We currently employ 50+ people and before the economic slowdown we employed over 70 local people. We are active in the community and the local chamber of commerce. We deal with several dozen local vendors on a day to day basis and many more during a month. All depend on our business for part of their livelihood. We are financially strong with great respect in the market place and community. We have strong local presence and stability. I work every day the store is open, nine to ten hours a day. I know most of our customers and all our employees. Sunshine Dodge is my life. On Thursday, May 14, 2009 I was notified that my Dodge franchise, that we purchased, will be taken away from my family on June 9, 2009 without compensation and given to another dealer at no cost to them. My new vehicle inventory consists of 125 vehicles with a financed balance of 3 million dollars. This inventory becomes impossible to sell with no factory incentives beyond June 9, 2009. Without the Dodge franchise we can no longer sell a new Dodge as "new," nor will we be able to do any warranty service work. Additionally, my Dodge parts inventory, (approximately $300,000.) is virtually worthless without the ability to perform warranty service. There is no offer from Chrysler to buy back the vehicles or parts inventory. Our facility was recently totally renovated at Chrysler's insistence, incurring a multi-million dollar debt in the form of a mortgage at Sun Trust Bank. HOW IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CAN THIS HAPPEN? THIS IS A PRIVATE BUSINESS NOT A GOVERNMENT ENTITY. This is beyond imagination! My business is being stolen from me through NO FAULT OF OUR OWN. We did NOTHING wrong. This atrocity will most likely force my family into bankruptcy. This will also cause our 50+ employees to be unemployed. How will they provide for their families? This is a total economic disaster. HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN IN A FREE MARKET ECONOMY IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?
I am certain that George Joseph is just one of many dealers whose businesses have been seized by major car manufacturers, sanctioned by the bankers directing the current administration’s spoils system of rewarding campaign contributors, friends and corporate allies. This is a blatant Communistic redistribution of property. The Elite have no loyalties – other than to each other.

Unfortunately, government power was usurped long ago by the Elite, the majority of them lawyers, who impose laws favorable to themselves and their corporate cohorts but disastrous to the common citizen. To keep us fighting among ourselves, the Elite fashioned political parties. The sincere Republican and Democrat citizens are so preoccupied blaming the specific parties that they fail to recognize that the Elite within both parties utilize the spoils system – no matter which party is in power.

Politicians are like professional wrestlers with orchestrated differences who choreograph their moves and celebrate after each match. Citizens naively believe the rhetoric because we hope things will improve while government Elites of both parties plunder our lives, liberties and pockets. We have all become enslaved and ransacked by a government that was “hired” to protect us from such egregious abuse.

In the 1700s the term “slave’ was applied to all indentured servants. Both black and white servants were granted their freedom as serving a specified length of time – typically seven years. Black and white slaves worked, lived, and played together, apparently indifferent to skin color differences. Racism was absent. That mutual acceptance was artificially altered when the minority colonial Elites, concerned about possible rebellion from the majority non-voting lower classes, took firm measures to divide poor whites and blacks “both socially and economically.” The bulk of society was composed of servants, landless tenants or small yeomen who owned inconsequential land that the Elite didn’t want. The Elite established a “divide and conquer” tactic that is still very much in place in most societies.
[4]

Historian Edmund S. Morgan pointed out, “For those with eyes to see, there was an obvious lesson in the rebellion. Resentment of an alien race might be more powerful than resentment of an upper class.”
[5]

Edward Bernays, the grand master of propaganda stated: “We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.”
[6]

The government and their compliant corporate press mold and manage our perceptions and prefer that we focus our anger and attention on numerous distractions – the illegal aliens, illusive terrorists, same-sex marriages, welfare recipients, North Korean testing, whether the CIA lied or was it Pelosi, Islamic fundamentalism, whether torture photos should be released or the current Supreme Court nominee, as if one court appointment can change the political landscape. The fact is that the government Elite set up this entire environment of contention to divert our attention from their treacherous unconstitutional, criminal activities – in both parties. This is all part of America’s drive into a One World Order, now hyper accelerated under the current administration.

You might ask – how did government Elites create the current environment. Decades ago the government abandoned the constitutional principles of non entanglement with foreign countries. Government officials are no longer public servants but private servants to deep-pocketed multinational corporations whose money keeps ego-driven politicians in power. Those same multinational corporations control the media flow of information in order to keep the people in an ignorant trance. Character-challenged politicians, mesmerized by power and money, cater to the insatiable greed of the privileged Elite under the pretext of spreading democracy, ousting cruel dictators, restricting the spread of Communism, Nazism, Fascism or terrorism.

The CIA created al Qaeda, the database and instigated Islamic fundamentalism by training 100,000 fundamentalist Muslim Mujahadeen. The CIA-friendly Zbigniew Brzezinski revealed that, unbeknownst to the American public and Congress, that Trilateralist Jimmy Carter authorized $500 million on July 3, 1979 to create an international terrorist movement that would spread Islamic fundamentalism throughout Central Asia in order to destabilize the Soviet Union, another made-in-America enemy that had served the purpose of its creation and now had to be dismantled. The CIA called this Operation Cyclone and functioned from 1979 to 1989 at a cost of $20-30 million per year beginning in 1980 which rose to $630 million per year in 1987. The U.S. poured another $4 billion into setting up Islamic training schools in Pakistan (Taliban means student). Young zealots were recruited and sent to the CIA's spy training camp in Virginia, where future members of al Qaeda were taught sabotage skills – terrorism. Young Afghans, Egyptian and Jordanian Arabs and some African American Muslims were instructed in the latest sabotage skills.
[7]

Taxpayer funds financed the I-hate-America textbooks for Muslim students. Prior to 1967, Islamic fundamentalism was a relatively small movement. In the early 1980’s, the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) gave a taxpayer funded grant to the University of Nebraska-Omaha and it’s Center for Afghanistan Studies to develop specialized textbooks. For more than twenty years the U.S. spent millions of dollars producing fanatical Islamic schoolbooks for distribution in Afghanistan, a country now known for its terrorist training camps. The schoolbooks, used throughout the 1990s for the country’s core curriculum, included illustrations of guns, bullets, soldiers, and mines to indoctrinate young minds towards violent destruction. Who authorized this hateful instruction for young impressionable minds?
[8]

For $190,000 a year, Donald Rumsfeld sat on the board and “attended nearly all of the board meetings” of the Swiss-based ABB Company between 1990 and February 2001.
[9] In 2000 (based on a Clinton era contract) ABB sold $200 million worth of components to North Korea to allow construction of two nuclear reactors. Currently, there are concerns about their activities. In December 1983 and again in March 1984, Ronald Reagan sent his personal emissary, Donald Rumsfeld, a former Secretary of Defense, to meet with Saddam Hussein along with Reagan’s handwritten note. This first meeting, on December 20, 1983, was for the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Iraq and the United States, the first since the 1967 war. We formally restored diplomatic relations with Iraq in November 1984. Then, Rumsfeld and his corporate cronies secretly supplied Saddam's military with the components to build chemical and biological weapons. Rumsfeld is just one example from dozens of Elites who repeatedly shift from boardroom to government office while stuffing their pockets from both positions.

David Rockefeller admitted in his relatively-recent book: “For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”
[10] What further proof do we need of a pervasive conspiracy – just look at the mounting evidence and forget the mesmerizing, feel-good political jargon emanating from Washington.

Footnotes:
1, The Law, The Classic Blueprint for a Just Society by Frederic Bastiat, Foundation for Economic Research, New York, pp. 2-3
2, The Law, The Classic Blueprint for a Just Society by Frederic Bastiat, Foundation for Economic Research, New York, pp. 2-3
3, Locke, John, 1632-1704. Two Treatises of Government: of Civil Government Book II, p. 135
4, Divided, the South’s Inner Civil War by David Williams, The New Press, New York, 2008, p. 15
5, American Slavery, American Freedom by Edmund S. Morgan, W.W. Norton & Co., 2003, pp. 269-270
6, Propaganda by Edward Bernays, Organizing Chaos, p. 37
7, How Jimmy Carter and I Started the Mujahadeen: Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski Le Nouvel Observateur (France), January 15-21, 1998, p. 76; The CIA's "Operation Cyclone" - Stirring the Hornet's Nest of Islamic Unrest, October 27, 2002,
8, From U.S., the ABC's of Jihad; Violent Soviet-Era Textbooks Complicate Afghan Education Efforts by Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway, Washington Post, March 23, 2002
9, Rumsfeld was on ABB board during deal with North Korea
10, David Rockefeller: Memoirs by David Rockefeller, Random House, owned since 1998 by the large German private media corporation Bertelsmann, 2002, p. 405

© 2008 Deanna Spingola - All Rights Reserved

Deanna Spingola has been a quilt designer and is the author of two books. She has traveled extensively teaching and lecturing on her unique methods. She has always been an avid reader of non-fiction works designed to educate rather than entertain. She is active in family history research and lectures on that topic. Currently she is the director of the local Family History Center. She has a great interest in politics and the direction of current government policies, particularly as they relate to the Constitution.

web site: www.spingola.com