The US is going in the wrong direction with excessive gas prices, a $59 trillion national debt, political scandals, lost jobs, and war based on lies and poor planning. Our leadership violated constitutional laws, justified torture, stole on a grand scale, and hidden their crimes under national security. Constitutional safe guards are destroyed. Voting rights have been compromised with all elections highly suspect using electronic computerized machines and other methods. We can change!

Monday, July 30, 2007

Spray-On Solar-Power Cells Are True Breakthrough

Spray-On Solar-Power Cells Are True Breakthrough





SOLAR REVOLUTION - Solar Paint
Ted Sargent is a pioneer in solar science. He's working on solar technology that could literally be woven into every aspect of daily life, from our clothes to our roads, using what is known as a spray-on solar cell. The implications for our energy systems are profound. As Ted says, "Solar energy is not just an exciting science problem, but an incredibly important human problem."

Ted is working on solar nanotechnology with the potential to make solar energy very cheap and allow society to collect it on a huge scale. Currently, solar technology costs more to build and install than most people are willing to pay. Solar panels, for example, the technology most commonly associated with solar energy, are installed on your rooftop. The cost of collecting one kilowatt per hour of solar energy (about a third of the electricity an average household uses on any given day) is about $11,000.

Not only are panels expensive to install, they capture only the visible portion of the sun's rays so they work only on sunny days. Ted's focus is the infrared portion of the sun's rays which accounts for more than half of all solar energy. What's more, infrared energy is available to us even in cloudy weather.
A quantum dot is a semiconductor nanostructure that confines the motion of conduction band electrons, valence band holes, or excitons (bound pairs of conduction band electrons and valence band holes) in all three spatial directions. The confinement can be due to electrostatic potentials (generated by external electrodes, doping, strain, impurities), the presence of an interface between different semiconductor materials (e.g. in core-shell nanocrystal systems), the presence of the semiconductor surface (e.g. semiconductor nanocrystal), or a combination of these. A quantum dot has a discrete quantized energy spectrum. The corresponding wave functions are spatially localized within the quantum dot, but extend over many periods of the crystal lattice. A quantum dot contains a small finite number (of the order of 1-100) of conduction band electrons, valence band holes, or excitons, i.e., a finite number of elementary electric charges.

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Saturday, July 21, 2007

iPhone a Trojan Horse For Government Surveillance?

Subject: Apple's new iPhone programs a Trojan Horse For Government Surveillance on users?

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2007/200707iphonesurveillance.htm

Backdoor spyware module allows state, corporations and hackers to listen in.

Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet

July 20, 2007 -- An alarming white paper concludes that the Apple iPhone contains a backdoor spyware module that allows hackers or the government to conduct secret surveillance of the user, part of an established trend of corporations and the state working hand in hand to eavesdrop on citizens via widely-used software and hardware products.

Earlier this week, a technology group in Russia released the results of their attempts to reverse engineer the iPhone, concluding that the product has "A built-in function which sends all data from an iPhone to a specified web-server. Contacts from a phonebook, SMS, recent calls, history of Safari browser - all your personal information can be stolen."

The module could act as a back door for trojan developers or AT & T, said the report, adding that "government structures" would have access to the information.

Since AT & T displayed no hesitation in handing over information about their subscribers to the U.S. government as part of the controversial and illegal NSA wiretapping scandal, it would be no surprise to learn that included in the trendy new must-have gadget is a spyware module that allows the government to listen in to your conversations.

AT & T was chosen by Apple as the exclusive service provider for the iPhone, at present all other cellphone companies are blocked from offering any kind of service compatible with the iPhone.

The revelation is also not without precedent - a plethora of companies now include backdoor access in both software and hardware products that allow the state to step in and conduct warrantless covert surveillance, a blanket violation of the 4th Amendment.

Digital cable TV boxes, such as Scientific Atlanta, have had secret in-built microphones inside them since their inception in the 1990's and these originally dormant devices were planned to be activated when the invasive advertising revolution arrived - 2006 marked that date.

The advent of digital video recording devices such as TiVo (Sky Plus in the UK) introduced the creation of psychological algorithm profiles - databases on what programs you watched, how long you watched them for, which adverts you liked or didn't like. This information was retained by TiVo and sold to the highest bidders - an example being Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction during the 2003 Super Bowl half-time show - TiVo were able to compile lists of how many people had rewound the clip and how many times they had replayed it.

Two way communications systems like OnStar also have the ability to tap into private conversations as Americans become increasingly conditioned, by means of the private sector, to having their every movement, web session and conversation tracked and catalogued by big brother.

Last year we reported on how Google were planning to use microphones in the computers of an estimated 150 million-plus Internet active Americans to spy on their lifestyle choices and build psychological profiles which will be used for surveillance and minority report style invasive advertising and data mining.

"The idea is to use the existing PC microphone to listen to whatever is heard in the background, be it music, your phone going off or the TV turned down. The PC then identifies it, using fingerprinting, and then shows you relevant content, whether that's adverts or search results, or a chat room on the subject," reported the Register.

The report cites the inevitability that the use and abuse of this technology will eventually be taken over by the state.

"Pretty soon the security industry is going to find a way to hijack the Google feed and use it for full on espionage."

The Echelon program has collected information in violation of the 4th Amendment from American citizen's phone call conversations since the early 90's at least. In addition, a 2001 European Parliament report stated that "within Europe all e-mail, telephone and fax communications are routinely intercepted" by the NSA.

The fact that Echelon barely even merited a mention during the recent furore created by the original USA Today NSA spying piece goes to show how utterly useless our media are in recalling what has already been admitted and proven.

In 1999 the Australian government admitted that they were part of an NSA led global intercept and surveillance grid in alliance with the US and Britain that could listen to "every international telephone call, fax, e-mail, or radio transmission."

The use of the iPhone as another means of carte-blanch invasive surveillance underscores the fact that corporations and government are joined at the hip when it comes to their disregard of the right to privacy as enshrined in the 4th Amendment to the Constitution.

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Friday, July 20, 2007

Why Impeach Cheney?

Impeach Cheney First

Monday, July 16, 2007

Articles of Impeachment Draft

Articles of Impeachment


of

President George W. Bush

and

Vice President Richard B. Cheney,
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,
and
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales

URL: http://www.impeachbush.org/site/PageServer

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. - - ARTICLE II, SECTION 4 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have committed violations and subversions of the Constitution of the United States of America in an attempt to carry out with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes and deprivations of the civil rights of the people of the United States and other nations, by assuming powers of an imperial executive unaccountable to law and usurping powers of the Congress, the Judiciary and those reserved to the people of the United States, by the following acts:

1) Seizing power to wage wars of aggression in defiance of the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Charter and the rule of law; carrying out a massive assault on and occupation of Iraq, a country that was not threatening the United States, resulting in the death and maiming of over one hundred thousand Iraqis, and thousands of U.S. G.I.s.

2) Lying to the people of the U.S., to Congress, and to the U.N., providing false and deceptive rationales for war.

3) Authorizing, ordering and condoning direct attacks on civilians, civilian facilities and locations where civilian casualties were unavoidable.

4) Instituting a secret and illegal wiretapping and spying operation against the people of the United States through the National Security Agency.

5) Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently changing its government by force and assaulting Iraq in a war of aggression.

6) Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary executions, kidnappings, secret and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners to obtain false statements concerning acts and intentions of governments and individuals and violating within the United States, and by authorizing U.S. forces and agents elsewhere, the rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

7) Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about the conduct of foreign governments and individuals and acts by U.S. government personnel; manipulating the media and foreign governments with false information; concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment concerning acts, intentions and possession, or efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in order to falsely create a climate of fear and destroy opposition to U.S. wars of aggression and first strike attacks.

8) Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, both a part of the "Supreme Law of the land" under Article VI, paragraph 2, of the Constitution, in an attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes in wars and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and others and usurping powers of the United Nations and the peoples of its nations by bribery, coercion and other corrupt acts and by rejecting treaties, committing treaty violations, and frustrating compliance with treaties in order to destroy any means by which international law and institutions can prevent, affect, or adjudicate the exercise of U.S. military and economic power against the international community.

9) Acting to strip United States citizens of their constitutional and human rights, ordering indefinite detention of citizens, without access to counsel, without charge, and without opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention, based solely on the discretionary designation by the Executive of a citizen as an "enemy combatant."

10) Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens in the United States and elsewhere, and without charge, at the discretionary designation of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Defense.

11) Ordering and authorizing the Attorney General to override judicial orders of release of detainees under INS jurisdiction, even where the judicial officer after full hearing determines a detainee is wrongfully held by the government.

12) Authorizing secret military tribunals and summary execution of persons who are not citizens who are designated solely at the discretion of the Executive who acts as indicting official, prosecutor and as the only avenue of appellate relief.

13) Refusing to provide public disclosure of the identities and locations of persons who have been arrested, detained and imprisoned by the U.S. government in the United States, including in response to Congressional inquiry.

14) Use of secret arrests of persons within the United States and elsewhere and denial of the right to public trials.

15) Authorizing the monitoring of confidential attorney-client privileged communications by the government, even in the absence of a court order and even where an incarcerated person has not been charged with a crime.

16) Ordering and authorizing the seizure of assets of persons in the United States, prior to hearing or trial, for lawful or innocent association with any entity that at the discretionary designation of the Executive has been deemed "terrorist."

17) Engaging in criminal neglect in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, depriving thousands of people in Louisiana, Mississippi and other Gulf States of urgently needed support, causing mass suffering and unnecessary loss of life.

18) Institutionalization of racial and religious profiling and authorization of domestic spying by federal law enforcement on persons based on their engagement in noncriminal religious and political activity.

19) Refusal to provide information and records necessary and appropriate for the constitutional right of legislative oversight of executive functions.

20) Rejecting treaties protective of peace and human rights and abrogation of the obligations of the United States under, and withdrawal from, international treaties and obligations without consent of the legislative branch, and including termination of the ABM treaty between the United States and Russia, and rescission of the authorizing signature from the Treaty of Rome which served as the basis for the International Criminal Court.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

What we need to do to keep our democracy!

Actions people can take to insure a strong Democracy!


by Marc Doyle
July 15, 2007

What can you do to preserve our Constitution and thus protect your freedoms? Make no mistake there is only one Republican Presidential candidate (
Ron Paul) and one Democratic Presidential candidate (Dennis Kucinich) who would defend and protect the Constitution. All other candidates are would take the powers and secrecy that Bush and Cheney have annexed for the Presidency and add to them thus pushing us further and further toward a totalitarian state. Here are some ideas for all of us to show our leaders we are serious about holding them to do their duty and follow the Supreme Law of the Land (Our Constitution) instead of usurping powers they were never intended to have or neglecting their sworn duty to follow. Here are some proactive measures we all can take.

Study the Issues

To remain a free people, we need a press and media who report the stories correctly. The press has failed miserably and thus forced Americans to look else where. We have multiple sources to learn about the Constitution and Why Impeachment is Necessary in this case. We need to tackle our press and media about their failure to adequately inform us, and I'll write about this in the future with specific ideas we can use.

Books - To understand why impeachment is both legal and necessary obtain one of the books below and read it. In fact, read several to get know why this is so important to our democracy. To find more books, you can do a search using a search engine. Links Below

The Impeachment of George W. Bush A Guide for Concerned Citizens by Elizabeth Holtzman
Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush by Center for Constitutional Rights
The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism by John Nichols
How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok by Glen Greenwald
Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency by Robert Byrd
The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office by Dave Lindoff
Impeach the President: The Case Against Cheney and Bush by Dennis Loo
The 2007 Bush-Cheney Impeachments by Craig Leslie

Media Sources on Impeachment
Tough Talk on Impeachment - PBS Bill Moyers Journal July 13, 2007
The Media Gets Impeachment Wrong - By Salon
Blacked Out by the Corporate Media, Impeachment Advances by Dave Lindorff
Media Very Slow to Acknowledge Majority Want Impeachment by Impeach for Peace
Impeachment Fever and Media Politics by Norman Solomon

Internet Sources for Impeachment - A search on the internet using impeach and Bush or Cheney revels millions of places to get information about impeachment and these two leaders.

Impeach Bush: Vote Here
Los Angeles National Impeachment Center
Impeach Bush for Peace
Impeach Bush: Because We Love America
Impeach Bush Coalition
Impeach Bush and Cheney
Meet ups and Activists to Impeach Bush and Cheney
Reasons to Impeach Bush and Cheney
100,000,000 American Vote to Impeach Bush and Cheney
Vote to Impeach Cheney

Write and Call House Speaker Pelosi NOW

When you call or write; be polite, introduce yourself, explain that you are calling her office to ask her take action as the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Tell her aide that you want her to do her constitutional duty for the American people and to put impeachment back on the table for George Bush for (name several reasons) by drafting articles of impeachment for him and to throw her support behind Dennis Kucinich's Impeach Cheney Bill-H RES 333. Call (202) 225-0100 her direct line as speaker. She is under strong pressure from the American people to put impeachment on the table again.

SEND MAIL TO HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI:

Attn
: Nancy Pelosi, House Representative/Speaker of the House,
235 Cannon H.O.B.,
Washington, DC 20515 ;
Pelosi's Fax # 202 225-8259


Send an email to her office from this site. http://speaker.gov/contact/

or

Pelosi's personal e-mail address :

Americanvoices@mail.house.gov or CC her at: sf.nancy@mail.house.gov

Please send her a pro-impeachment email and a specific call to endorse H Res 333. Note: On Saturdays/Sundays, Pelosi's office has a comment line at which you can leave a voicemail. Your message will be transcribed and relayed to her. Please do encourage your family/friends to contact the same number. Refer them to www.bcimpeach.com for the actual telephone #s & contact info.

Find out who your Congressional representative is and call that person. For toll free numbers to your Congress rep: (800) 828 – 0498; (800) 459 – 1887; or (866) 340 – 9281. You will be connected once you name your congress person. The staff aid should take detailed notes and provided to the Congressional representative.

Write and Call Your Representative NOW

Find Your Representative - http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Final Note: Please say "I support Impeachment based on ____. I'd like to know where "[representative name]" stands on this issue." Let's strike while the Libby fury keeps the iron hot! Please call and Act Now

Call the Members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Representative Capitol Phone Capitol Fax
Henry Waxman 202-225-3976 202-225-4099
Howard Berman 202-225-4605 202-225-3196
D. Watson 202-225-7084 202-225-2422
Linda Sanchez 202-225-6676 202-226-1012
L. Solis 202-225-5464 202-225-5467
A.G. Eshoo 202-225-8104 202-225-8890
L. Roybal/Allard 202-225-1766 202-225-0350

Call and write the Members of the House Judicial Committee asking them to impeach Bush and Cheney

Find Out Where the 2008 Presidential Candidates Stand on Impeachment and the Constitution

Write or contact the following Presidential Candidates and ask them where they stand on this issue. If they are vague, refuse to answer, or contradict their previous stands, you should not give your money or support to them. Call their Campaigns and ask where they stand!

2008 Democratic Presidential Candidates

Hillary Clinton for President 2008 *
Barack Obama for President 2008
Chris Dodd for President 2008
Joe Biden for President 2008
John Edwards *
Mike Graval
Dennis Kucinich **
Bill Richardson
Al Gore ***

*
One reason why I am not for seeing any support for Hillary Clinton or John Edwards become a future President is the fact that they want to limit participation and any input by other candidates who are bringing a refreshing openness to the the debates that would be lacking if they lost their voice. If these two politicians could do this before they become President, I shudder to think what would happen if they became President. Very very scary. Further their attitude toward the constitution is weak to non existent.
** On record as supporting a stronger better America. Introduced Articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney. Has not stated position about Constitution so I will ask and report in a future report.
*** Not running as of 7/15/2007. Indicates he will not run.

2008 Republican Presidential Candidates
Rudy Giuliani
John McCain
Sam Brownback
Mike Huckabee
Duncan Hunter
Ron Paul *
Mitt Romney
Tom Tancredo
Fred Thompson **
Tommy Thompson

* Of all the Presidential candidates running for office, Democrat or Republican, Ron Paul would be the only one who would restore the US Constitution to the people and renounce the power that George Bush and Dick Cheney have taken for the executive office. Although we have many pressing social issues as well as financial woes, Ron Paul would still make the best President at this time of constitutional crisis because of his stand on the constitution.

** Fred Thompson is currently exploring the possibility of running for president.


Why we must Impeach Bush and Cheney!!

by Marc Doyle
URL: http://usdirections.blogspot.com/
July 15, 2007

As of this writing, our Republic and Democratic ideals are in grave peril if not lost to us. All other issues pale in comparison to where we will go if we do not act - toward a Corporate Fascist state with a population who is oppressed and repressed or a free strong people who love liberty and freedom willing to fight for their freedoms. Unless we restore our lost freedoms, make our political leaders and law makers responsible for following the rule of law which is our US Constitution, we have lost our freedoms and will reap a life that will be too horrible to contemplate for us and our posterity thus undoing the sacrifices of our founders and all the brave and honorable people who dedicated their lives for the American ideal.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbbdd64cGweogrK3QF0aSotPwYGklxsQMUxTnPUgYTnj5j8I0HFGCFI5gaDOVFccgLNsVaYoCOLSpcHCq-DqdsbxmBwsFoudbAAJ1p5jAd_Sqp9qoPK52RinW3XPHmhp_XyK5n/s1600-h/hagel3_07_071.jpgSenator Chuck Hagel tells ABC that impeachment is an option for a monarchy…

video_wmv Download (4994) | Play (4428) video_mov Download (2070) | Play (2680) (h/t Scarce)


If ever there was a time for the American people to demand from our law makers that they indict and impeach George W. Bush and Richard 'Dick' Cheney, that time is now. The reasons for wanting these men impeached should not based on partisan reasons because Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Greens, etc. are all at risk from the actions these two men have for our country and the Constitution that they have trampled on. Why must we do this, because of the utter contempt that they show for our form of government and because they have subverted our democratic ideals, committed and hidden crimes by obstructing justice, sponsored acts of torture, broken national and international laws; used threats, lied and committed perjury in lawful investigations, practice fear and intimidation on the American people; ignored our rule of law, ignored the normal checks and balances that the American Constitution provides, have subordinates who swear allegiance to them and not the Constitution and the American people.

The US Constitution is the supreme law of America which is the guide about the duties, government, responsibilities, etc. of our elected representatives as well as insuring all of us liberty and freedom. It is clear that our elected representatives either have utter contempt or total ignorance about their duties. It is up to the people to remind them and get our Republic back on track.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the elected speaker of the US House of Representatives, took impeachment off the table, and she is wrong and in violation of her Oath of office where she swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. At this moment, Nancy Pelosi is in contempt of the law and should be compelled to do her duty, or we should demand she step down and let someone else who has an understanding about the Constitution prosecute George W. Bush and Richard 'Dick' Cheney for their crimes and violations against our country and all citizens. We need to tell Nancy Pelosi to do your job and put impeachment back on the table or resign!! Harsh, yes, but necessary if we are to preserve our country as we know it. Another important action we need to take is to educate our Congressmen and women about the constitution, they seem ignorant and clueless about how it works.

Write and Call House Speaker Pelosi NOW

When you call or write; be polite, introduce yourself, explain that you are calling her office to ask her take action as the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Tell her aide that you want her to do her constitutional duty for the American people and to put impeachment back on the table for George Bush for (name several reasons) by drafting articles of impeachment for him and to throw her support behind Dennis Kucinich's Impeach Cheney Bill
- HR333. Call (202) 225-0100 her direct line as speaker. She is under strong pressure from the American people to put impeachment on the table again.

SEND MAIL TO HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI:

Attn
: Nancy Pelosi, House Representative/Speaker of the House,
235 Cannon H.O.B.,
Washington, DC 20515 ;
Pelosi's Fax # 202 225-8259


Send an email to her office from this site. http://speaker.gov/contact/

Pelosi's personal e-mail address :

Americanvoices@mail.house.gov

CC her at: sf.nancy@mail.house.gov

Please send her a pro-impeachment email and a specific call to endorse H Res 333. Note: On Saturdays/Sundays, Pelosi's office has a comment line at which you can leave a voicemail. Your message will be transcribed and relayed to her. Please do encourage your family/friends to contact the same number. Refer them to www.bcimpeach.com for the actual telephone #s & contact info.

Find out who your Congressional representative is and call that person. For toll free numbers to your Congress rep: (800) 828 – 0498; (800) 459 – 1887; or (866) 340 – 9281. You will be connected once you name your congress person. The staff aid should take detailed notes and provided to the Congressional representative.

My next article will address what we as citizens can do to preserve our Republic and freedoms. I am also planning on doing two television shows one on the US Constitution - Let Freedom Ring and the second one called The Great Censor - News the Mainstream Media Refuses to Report.


Friday, July 13, 2007

The News You Didn't Hear: Congress Sells Out Americans for Pharmacy Dollars

FDA tyranny to become law

HR.2900 analysis by Richards and Adams

by Mike Adams

On July 11, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 2900, blocking debate on the law and preventing the introduction of any amendments that might have provided meaningful drug safety protections for consumers. This action demonstrates that the House of Representatives, much like the Senate, is utterly controlled by Big Pharma and has abandoned any responsibility to defend the interests of the voters. Drug companies now have complete control over the U.S. Congress, and through a campaign of intense lobbying and financial influence, they have managed to easily water down a law that once proposed to end the American monopoly on pharmaceuticals and ban advertising on new drugs.

Instead of placing new restrictions on Big Pharma and the increasingly dangerous power of the FDA, this new law (a combination of HR.2900 and S.1082, when it is hammered out in conference) grants more power to the FDA while deepening the financial ties between the agency and drug companies. The law effectively surrenders America to a system of medical tyranny under which a criminally-operated FDA will continue to promote pharmaceuticals, censor nutritional education and discredit alternatives that threaten drug company profits. Nothing in the new law protects consumers' access to dietary supplements or natural medicine.

Got a law? Make it weaker

The House version of the bill is stronger than the Senate version in terms of drug safety issues, but these differences could easily disappear in conference, leading to a final signing of a useless, watered-down "FDA safety" bill that is actually nothing more than an FDA corruption rewards program. (It's better than a frequent flyer program because the miles never expire and there are no blackout dates...)

While the House version would require the publishing of a clinical trials database (which shouldn't even be debatable, it should be full disclosure by default) and limit the number of bribed FDA officials who can sit on a drug decision panel to one, even these provisions are laughable in the fact that none of them actually require drug companies or the FDA to act with integrity or defend the health and safety of the American public.

The great Congressional sellout

Congress had the potential to pass a really good law here -- one that would have ended direct-to-consumer advertising, banned conflicts of interest at the FDA, required the open source publication of drug trials and ended the U.S. monopoly on pharmaceuticals. Instead, Congress chose to do none of these things. It staged a song and dance about "FDA reform" while selling out the future of America's health to a tiny but powerful group of ultra-wealthy corporations that now virtually rule this country. There is nothing in the new law worth celebrating unless, of course, you are the CEO or major shareholder of a Big Pharma corporation, in which case you will like be stunned at just how cheaply and easily U.S. lawmakers can be bought.

Notice, too, that this sellout crosses party lines and involves both Democrats and Republicans. Only one Congressman, Rep. Ron Paul (a Libertarian-leaning Republican), was attempting to introduce meaningful amendments that would protect the interests of the people. His efforts were blocked by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat.

FDA reform legislation is not about Democrats vs. Republicans. It's about the wealthy elite vs. the People. Not surprisingly, the People have once again been screwed by the representatives they foolishly voted into office. If anything, this event proves that U.S. lawmakers have no interest in protecting America's future. They are only interested in the next election, the next career move or the next power play. In a nation devastated by degenerative disease and intoxicated by the chemicals being pushed to manage those diseases, there is no longer anyone left in power with enough sanity to reason with. The President is clinically insane, the FDA is criminally insane, and the Congress is for sale, cheap! The country has become an absurdity, where lawmakers actually bicker about how much bribery and corruption should be allowed in the FDA drug approval decision process rather than simply agreeing to ban all bribery and conflicts of interest, which is what sane lawmakers would do.

Stand back and watch the bonfire

Over the last few months, I have come to the conclusion that it is no longer worth attempting to stop American's self-destruction at the hands of Big Pharma, corrupt politicians and greedy fractional reserve bankers. America is destroying itself, and there is no one left who's willing to stand up and try to stop it (except, perhaps, for a few individuals like Rep. Ron Paul, but he's effectively censored by the powers that be).

My advice to readers is to start thinking very seriously about getting out of America. What's coming over the next 5 - 25 years will not be pretty, and I now believe the collapse of America as we know it today is inevitable. The 2008 elections will change nothing, as either party will only deliver a different form of tyranny in the end. America has devolved into a modern mirror image of the Roman Empire in its last dying days -- steeped in corruption, abandoning its citizens, arrogant beyond all reason, oblivious to the world around it and wholly committed to destroying itself from within.

Congress has become a circus, and the U.S. government, through agencies like the FDA, has become the leading threat to its own people. The nation is steeped in irreversible debt, diseased, terrified, bankrupt and addicted to oil that's running out. On top of that, thanks to Bush-contrived military imperialism, it has alienated every other nation in the world and has now become the most-hated nation on the planet. (If you don't believe me, just travel outside the U.S. and ask practically anybody you meet. Everybody hates the U.S.) It is now only a question of how long the current crippled facade of political power will last.

The passage of this FDA reform law is merely one more sign of how thoroughly committed the U.S. Congress is to creating a future of death, disease and bankruptcy for the American people. You gotta give 'em kudos on consistency, however. At least the lawmakers are predictable.

Welcome to the United States of Big Pharma.

Comments by Byron Richards

On Wednesday, July 11, 2007 the House passed HR.2900 without allowing the Ron Paul (R-TX) amendments to protect dietary supplements. Representatives Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), John Dingell (D-MI), Henry Waxman (D-CA), and others falsely proclaimed that they were doing America a favor by passing this sweeping FDA-supported legislation that grants the rouge agency more power and money, and even transforms it into a quasi drug company.

Both the House and Senate (S.1082) have made the fatally flawed assumption that the reason for so many deaths and injuries from drugs was due to the FDA's lack of resources. In reality, it is the INTENTION of FDA management that is the problem, combined with the simple fact that multiple drugs are extremely toxic and don't work as advertised. Giving the FDA more power and money will only cause the agency to speed more drugs onto the market faster with even less safety testing -- while abusing its power and actively stamping out competition to drugs.

FDA management is in bed with Big Pharma and this new legislation makes matters significantly worse through the creation of the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA. This new entity places the FDA in charge of drug design, drug patents, drug licenses, and the creation of new marketing entities/companies. Such a relationship with private industry is an unprecedented conflict of interest, totally at odds with drug safety. The current commissioner of the FDA, Andrew von Eschenbach, M.D. is little more than a Big Biotech sales rep with massive industry connections.

The House, like the Senate, will continue to allow direct to consumer advertising of new drugs with unknown risks -- a flagrant safety risk that will cost many people their lives. Congressional leaders said they couldn't prevent this advertisement for fear of violating the first amendment rights of drug companies. What a joke. The FDA routinely squashes the first amendment rights of American citizens to understand natural health options and the science that explains how they can prevent and treat disease. Thus, the first amendment argument is simply a matter of convenience. The FDA wants to actively suppress information that will help people, yet allow highly risky and misleading promotion of toxic substances often for untested uses. The FDA even wants to prevent citizens from suing drug companies when they are injured, thus protecting Big Pharma. FDA tyranny, based on this type of arbitrary and unrestrained exercise of power, is used to promote and protect the pharmaceutical industry while at the same time undermining the dietary supplement industry.

Both the House and Senate think it is completely fine that the drug industry pay the FDA fees so that the FDA can approve new drugs faster. Indeed, the FDA and Big Pharma met 112 times to work out their partnership before the FDA let Congress know what it wanted to see in HR.2900 and S.1082. This is like paying the mob for protection. A careful look at the history of the FDA shows it is little more than a bully that protects vested interests at the expense of human health. It is a pitiful agency. It is little wonder than the majority of Americans don't trust the FDA.

Big Pharma owns the FDA and Congress. The drug industry sees FDA management and Congressional leaders as a training pool for future Big Pharma jobs -- based on how well Big Pharma is supported. There will certainly be plenty of rewards to pass out after this legislation becomes law.

It is a sick situation that this new fake safety legislation provides the FDA with unprecedented new power to stamp out competition to drug companies as well as expose Americans to far greater safety risks than ever before. Provisions within the legislation that creates the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA will allow the FDA to remove any dietary supplement from the market based on its whim.

It is now only a matter of time and a formality before HR.2900 and S.1082 become law. There will be a little bit of haggling in the conference committee, as Big Pharma will takes its last chance at watering down any meaningful reform (of which there is very little). Big Pharma will whine that this legislation is too tough on them, which is a fallacy. This legislation is the Big Pharma dream come true. In a football analogy the only question is the final score. Will Big Pharma win by 28-7 or will it win by 42-7. Big Pharma has just cleaned the clock of Americans. We should not forget the gutless Congressional puppets that made it happen.

A new tone has been set. A new chart has been plotted. Congress has transformed the FDA into a quasi drug company with unprecedented new regulatory power to control all health options in America. How many deaths and injuries will it take for a comatose and medicinally-overdosed public to wake up?

About Byron Richards

Byron J. Richards, Founder/Director of Wellness Resources, is a Board-Certified Clinical Nutritionist and nationally-renowned health expert, radio personality, and educator. He is the author of Mastering Leptin, The Leptin Diet, and Fight for Your Health: Exposing the FDA's Betrayal of America.

Richards encourages individuals to take charge of their health, stand up for their health rights, and not blindly succumb to propaganda from the vested-interests who profit from keeping Americans sick. As founder of Wellness Resources, Inc. of Minneapolis, MN, an independently-owned fine-quality dietary supplement company since 1985, he has personally developed 75 unique nutraceutical-grade nutritional formulas. www.wellnessresources.com

FREE Subscription to Byron's Health Newsletter, click here.



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Tuesday, July 03, 2007

How many crimes have to be committed before congress does it's job?

This is from the Aggressive Progressives at http://www.democrats.com/ If there ever was a time to impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney as well as Alberto Gonzales.

Not to would be a further violation of our laws.

Marc

Ten Reasons to Impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney

I ask Congress to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney for the following reasons:
  1. Violating the United Nations Charter by launching an illegal "War of Aggression" against Iraq without cause, using fraud to sell the war to Congress and the public, misusing government funds to begin bombing without Congressional authorization, and subjecting our military personnel to unnecessary harm, debilitating injuries, and deaths.
  2. Violating U.S. and international law by authorizing the torture of thousands of captives, resulting in dozens of deaths, and keeping prisoners hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
  3. Violating the Constitution by arbitrarily detaining Americans, legal residents, and non-Americans, without due process, without charge, and without access to counsel.
  4. Violating the Geneva Conventions by targeting civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, and using illegal weapons, including white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and a new type of napalm.
  5. Violating U.S. law and the Constitution through widespread wiretapping of the phone calls and emails of Americans without a warrant.
  6. Violating the Constitution by using "signing statements" to defy hundreds of laws passed by Congress.
  7. Violating U.S. and state law by obstructing honest elections in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.
  8. Violating U.S. law by using paid propaganda and disinformation, selectively and misleadingly leaking classified information, and exposing the identity of a covert CIA operative working on sensitive WMD proliferation for political retribution.
  9. Subverting the Constitution and abusing Presidential power by asserting a "Unitary Executive Theory" giving unlimited powers to the President, by obstructing efforts by Congress and the Courts to review and restrict Presidential actions, and by promoting and signing legislation negating the Bill of Rights and the Writ of Habeas Corpus.
  10. Gross negligence in failing to assist New Orleans residents after Hurricane Katrina, in ignoring urgent warnings of an Al Qaeda attack prior to Sept. 11, 2001, and in increasing air pollution causing global warming.

What can you do?

Bush has now joined Libby and Cheney in the criminal coverup of the felonious outing a covert CIA agent.

The Busheviks think Bush can ignore the public furor. Tucker Carlson's rightwing dad demanded the pardon, saying "The president will take some heat for it. So what? He takes heat for everything."

Well this time the heat has to get hotter than the glowing tiles on a Space Shuttle - and we have to make it that way. Just last week, 72% of Americans opposed a pardon.

Email your Representatives to Impeach Cheney

Email your Representatives to Impeach Bush

Email the House Judiciary Committee to Start Hearings on H.Res. 333, Articles of Impeachment for Vice President Cheney

Organize a Honk to Impeach on July 4

Join your local Congressional District Impeachment Committee

Don't waste your time calling the White House (the switchboard is closed anyway). Call your Representative to impeach Cheney and Bush:

1 (800) 828 - 0498

1 (800) 459 - 1887

1 (800) 614 - 2803

1 (866) 340 - 9281

1 (866) 338 - 1015

1 (877) 851 - 6437

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Lobbyist, Fred Thompson's Resume shows a Washington Insider's Connections

His credentials do no inspire confidence except for someone who can be easily controlled.


Lobbyist, Fred Thompson's Resume shows a Washington Insider's Connections

from an article printed in SignOnSanDiego.com
By Travis Loller
ASSOCIATED PRESS
2:07 p.m. June 25, 2007



NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Republican Fred Thompson, who likes to cast himself in the role of Washington outsider, has a long history as a political insider who earned more than $1 million lobbying the federal government.

As a lobbyist for more than 20 years, billion-dollar corporations paid Thompson for his access to members of Congress and White House staff. During that time he was close to two Senate majority leaders, both from his home state of Tennessee – his political mentor Howard Baker and, more recently, his former colleague Bill Frist.

During Baker's tenure, Thompson lobbied for a savings-and-loan deregulation bill that helped hasten the industry's collapse and a failed nuclear energy project that cost taxpayers more than a billion dollars.

More recently, while Frist led the Senate, Thompson earned more than $750,000 lobbying for a British reinsurance company that wanted to limit its liability from asbestos lawsuits.
That history as a Washington insider is at odds with the image Thompson has sought to convey to voters. When he first ran for the Senate in 1993, Thompson cast himself in the part of the gruff, plainspoken everyman, leased a red pickup truck and drove around Tennessee in his shirt sleeves.

Now, as he considers an expected run for president in 2008, the actor-politician continues to position himself as a political outsider.

However, lobbying has been a steady side gig for Thompson ever since the end of the Watergate hearings that brought him to Washington in 1973 as minority counsel for the investigative committee co-chaired by the GOP's Baker. Lobbying clients paid him about half a million dollars between 1975 and 1993, when he started his campaign for the Senate. He released 20 years worth of tax returns during the race.

When Baker became Senate majority leader in 1981, lobbying provided Thompson with about 80 percent of his total income.

One of his clients at the time was the Tennessee Savings and Loan League, on whose behalf Thompson lobbied for a bill to deregulate the industry. Experts say the final version of that bill played a large role in the savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s, opening the door to widespread fraud and mismanagement.

The fiasco ultimately led to about a $150 billion taxpayer bailout of the industry, said Robert Litan, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution and co-author of a 1993 report on the causes of the disaster that describes the influence of lobbyists as “pervasive, pernicious – and effective.”

Thompson defended his S&L lobbying in a 1994 interview with The Commercial Appeal newspaper in Memphis, Tenn., saying that both parties agreed at the time that regulations limiting the industry's competitiveness needed to be relaxed.

Thompson's first and longest-running lobbying client was Westinghouse Electric Co., for whom he lobbied in favor of nuclear energy. In 1981, he received a little less than $54,000 from the company. At the time Westinghouse was receiving federal funds for Tennessee's Clinch River nuclear project.

A spokesman for Thompson, Mark Corallo, said the experimental reactor “was a local project focused on new kinds of energy at a time when the U.S. was going through an energy crisis.”
The reactor was never built and the project was canceled in 1983 after the government had spent $1.7 billion on it.

The spokesman said Thompson was unavailable to comment for this article.
Even after Thompson left the Senate in 2003 with a plum job playing District Attorney Arthur Branch on the NBC drama series “Law & Order” he continued to lobby, this time for Equitas, a British reinsurance company that handles billions of dollars of asbestos claims for Lloyd's of London. That earned him more than $750,000 over the past three years, including $300,000 in 2005, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

The firm had complained it was being treated differently from American companies in a bill designed to remove the about 600,000 asbestos lawsuits from the courts and create a trust fund for victims. The bill was supported by companies facing lawsuits and opposed by many victims and their attorneys.

Since leaving the Senate Thompson has continued to have close contact with powerful Republicans, including members of the Bush administration. That includes acting as the president's point man in guiding Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts through the Senate confirmation process in 2005.

Thompson also helped run the Scooter Libby Legal Defense Fund Trust, an organization that set out to raise more than $5 million to help finance the legal defense of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, who was convicted in March of lying and obstructing Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity.
“This is no political outsider,” said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for government ethics and campaign finance reform with Public Citizen. “He clearly gained a network of contacts in Congress though Howard Baker that he cashed in on and would represent anyone who would pay him.”

Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.

 
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