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Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Nation 'tearing itself apart' over presidential eligibility

CERTIFIGATE

Supremes need to 'do their job,' make ruling on constitutional question

By Bob Unruh
© 2011 WND

Barack Obama and Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga

Just one day after a case challenging Barack Obama's presidential eligibility was scheduled to be heard in conference at the U.S. Supreme Court, several veteran attorneys who already have fought that battle say it's time for the high court to step up, do its job and make a ruling on the controversial constitutional question of eligibility.

"This is a fundamental part of the Constitution," said Mario Apuzzo, an attorney who handled the case brought by Charles Kerchner up to the Supreme Court, where the justices refused to address the issue.

"They won't do their job. They are washing their hands of it. There is no standing (issue). There's no political question here," he said.

His comments came just one day after a case brought on behalf of then-presidential candidate Ambassador Alan Keyes reached the nation's highest court. And it came only a couple days after the Federal Election Commission stunningly said a foreign-born naturalized American citizen fits its requirements to run for president.

The decision muddied what already was an unclear standard regarding the Constitution's requirement that a president be only a "natural born Citizen," assumed at the time of the writing of the document to be the offspring of two U.S. citizens.

Autographed copies of Jerome Corsi's "Where’s the Birth Certificate?" are available only from the WND Superstore

It is the Keyes vs. Bowen case, handled by Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation, that was scheduled to be discussed by the justices yesterday. The case argues that in California, state officials previously investigated the eligibility of candidates – removing some from the ballot for ineligibility – but then refused to do the same for Barack Obama.

The case also cites a precedent out of the state Supreme Court in North Dakota for removing a chief elected officer who was already installed in the office when it was discovered he was ineligible.

The FEC decision involved New York lawyer Abdul Hassan, who was born in Guyana in 1974. Hassan argued it was discriminatory to not allow him to run for office.

In its official decision, the FEC said a naturalized citizen is not prevented by the Federal Election Campaign Act from becoming a "candidate,' however, that person would not be eligible for federal matching funds.

Stated the FEC ruling: "In regard to the definition of 'person,' the act defines that term as including 'an individual, partnership, committee, association, corporation, labor organization, or any other organization or group of persons,' excluding the federal government. There is no reference to natural born or naturalized citizens. As an individual, Mr. Hassan is a 'person' under the Act."

While the FEC's own rules now allow Hassan to run for high office, the attorney must still clear judicial hurdles before his eligibility can become official.

At issue is the stipulation in Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution that only a "natural-born" citizen can be president.

The clause states: "No person except a natural born citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution specifically defines "citizen" but not "natural-born citizen."

A "citizen" is defined as: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are Citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

However, no definition of "natural-born citizen" – which is only used in the presidential requirement clause – was provided anywhere in the Constitution, and to this day the precise meaning of the term is still being debated.

Kreep told WND that the FEC's result is "ludicrous."

"It flies in the face of the U.S. Constitution, and it just another example of how the Obama administration and its minions in the federal bureaucracies don't care about the U.S. Constitution and are more interested in the politics and appearing to be politically correct, and appeasing special interest groups instead of running the country according to the rule of law."

He confirmed that his organization is reviewing the FEC decision and may consider a legal challenge should an opportunity develop.

It was Apuzzo who took the issue into a broader context, warning that the authors of the Constitution had expressed that individuals who do not qualify as a "natura-born citizen" cannot be trusted to be president.

"They told us you can't trust this person as much as you can a natural-born citizen," he told WND. "And that [constitutional provision] hasn't been changed."

He said he earlier had argued for the court to take up the question not just because of the issue of Obama's eligibility in the 2008 election but also for Obama 2012 and for other candidates in the future.

"The Supreme Court should have decided the case. It's not a political question [as judges have claimed in rejecting cases.] We need to know what is a 'natural born citizen.

"The Supreme Court is the third branch of government. The Founders gave them the power to interpret the Constitution. The wolf can't guard the henhouse. We can't expect Congress and Obama to tell us whether he's not a natural born citizen," he said.

But mud was splashed on the issue when the Supreme Court justices refused on numerous occasions to make a determination, he contended.

He explained the lower court in the case he handled on behalf of Kerchner said if the petitioners were upset with Congress failing to address the issue, they could take the issue to the polls.

"The court actually told us that we're a mob democracy," he said. "Just go to the polls and define natural born citizen. … Imagine during the civil rights movement the courts saying if you don't like segregation, go to the polls."

"It's tearing us apart," he said.

He said the FEC ruling just stirs up more uncertainties.

"They distinguished between running for office, and sitting for office," he said. A president, he noted, "still has to be qualified." In fact, the Founders anticipated such a situation, by providing that Congress is responsible to check the eligibility of an elected president before allowing him to take office.

That was a function Congress failed in the 2008 election, he asserted.

"If he's not qualified, then Congress really shouldn't be confirming him," he said.

Laurence Elgin of the Constitutional Rule of Law Fund and website, who worked on many of the briefs in the Greg Hollister case that was brought to the Supreme Court by attorney John Hemenway, again challenging Obama's eligibility, said in the FEC case, officials "confused 'citizenship' under the 14th Amendment with the 'natural born citizen' requirement of Article II [in the Constituiton.]"

He noted one of the cases cited in the FEC arguments stated plainly, "The only difference drawn by the Constitution [between citizen and natural born citizen] is that only the 'natural born' citizen is eligible to be president."

He concluded there "is no historical support" for the claim by Hassan that is it somehow discriminatory to differentiate between a citizen and a natural born citizen.

"His entire argument is based on a notion of 'equal protection' as if the Framers had had no authority to make certain persons eligible for high office while excluding others. By the same argument the requirements to serve in Congress could be wiped out as well," he noted.

"I believe that this sort of broad assault on the precise language of the Constitution as chosen by its Framers and those who drafted its amendments is incompatible with the oath that Mr. Hassan would have to swear should he be elected president in that he would be assuming an office he knows from his arguments he is not eligible to hold unless the Constitution is assaulted.

"It will be interesting to see if his lack of eligibility, which is a fortiori greater than that of the present occupant of the Oval Office, goes unchallenged. What would be next, eligibility for illegals?" he wondered.

He suggested that it would be appropriate to ask members of the FEC, particularly the Republicans, "whether they swore an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution when they assumed office."

The issue of defining "natural born" could have implications for President Obama's 2012 bid. Many have argued Obama is not eligible since his father was a foreign national from Kenya and was not a U.S. citizen.

There are no records of any definitive discussion on the "natural born" matter during the Constitutional Convention. That – coupled with the absence of definitive Supreme Court rulings and a wide array of opinions throughout the centuries – has only further confused the question of what "natural born" actually means.

Still, many constitutional legal arguments lean heavily toward the definition of "natural born" meaning both parents were citizens in the U.S.

The legislative and judicial bodies of the U.S. government have held no formal discussions, nor did they conduct a single formal investigation into whether Obama is eligible to serve under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Congress did, however, question the "natural born" qualifications of Obama's 2008 presidential opponent, Republican Sen. John McCain.

The scion of distinguished U.S. naval officers, McCain was born to two American parents in the Panama Canal Zone. On April 30, 2008, the U.S. Senate sought to answer the question by passing a nonbinding resolution, which states, "Whereas John Sidney McCain, III, was born to American citizens on an American military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936: Now, therefore, be it resolved, that John Sidney McCain, III, is a 'natural born citizen' under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States."

The resolution clearly determined "natural born" to mean born of two parents who are U.S. citizens.

The closest that anything has come to an explanation for the high court's refusal to address the issue was a series of remarks by Justice Clarence Thomas, who appeared before a U.S. house subcommittee and responded to the issue.

Thomas was before the House subcommittee when Chairman Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., raised the question amid a discussion on racial diversity in the judiciary.

"I'm still waiting for the [court decision] on whether or not a Puerto Rican can run for president of the United States," said Serrano, who was born in the island territory. "That's another issue."

Yet after Serrano questioned him on whether or not the land's highest court would be well-served by a justice who had never been a judge, Thomas not only answered in the affirmative but also hinted that Serrano would be better off seeking a seat in the Supreme Court than a chair in the Oval Office.

"I'm glad to hear that you don't think there has to be a judge on the court," said Serrano, "because I'm not a judge; I've never been a judge."

"And you don't have to be born in the United States," said Thomas, referring to the Constitution, which requires the president to be a natural-born citizen but has no such requirement for a Supreme Court justice, "so you never have to answer that question."

"Oh really?" asked Serrano. "So you haven't answered the one about whether I can serve as president, but you answer this one?"

"We're evading that one," answered Thomas, referring to questions of presidential eligibility and prompting laughter in the chamber. "We're giving you another option."

The video:

The latest developments include an investigation of Obama announced by Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio based on a complaint from constituents that Obama's birth certification documentation is fraudulent.

The president, after essentially ignoring the controversy for years, personally got involved in defending his eligibility recently. In April he dispatched a private attorney to Hawaii to pick up a copy of what the state purported to be his original birth documentation.

This is the image that was released:

However, the authenticity of the image posted by the White House has been challenged by a number of analysts and other critics as fraudulent. And some note that if the document is real, it lists Barack Obama Sr. as the father, proving Obama Jr.'s ineligibility since a "natural born Citizen" was considered by scholars cited by the Founding Fathers to be the offspring of two citizen parents.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Thought it couldn't get any worse than Solyndra?

OBAMA MONEY

Obama Commerce pick awarded $1.37 billion in 'stimulus funds' for another risky solar plant

By Aaron Klein
© 2011 WND

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, President Obama and John Bryson at White House announcement of Bryson's nomination to succeed Locke (Screen shot from WhiteHouse.gov video)

President Obama's nominee for Commerce secretary served as chairman of the board of a solar energy company that recently received a $1.37 billion federal loan guarantee – the largest the Department of Energy has ever given for a solar power project.

Now that company, BrightSource Energy, is attempting to build the world's largest solar power plant amid concerns such ventures may be too risky an investment for the federal government.

In June, BrightSource Chairman John Bryson was nominated by Obama to head the Commerce Department.

WND reported in June that Bryson co-founded an environmental activist group that is a member and funder of the controversial Apollo Alliance.

Read what we'll need to accomplish to restore America to greatness.
Apollo is run by a slew of socialists and radicals, including Jeff Jones, a founder of the Weather Underground domestic terrorist organization. Jones himself boasts of doing work for the environmental group founded by Bryson, the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Bryson served until June as co-chairman of the Pacific Council on International Policy, a globalist organization whose members can be found throughout the Obama administration.

The massive loan guarantee to BrightSource is meant to build an expensive California desert solar plant known as the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System.

The system will feature mirrors that reflect sun toward a massive central tower that is in turn heated to produce steam meant to spin turbines to produce electricity.

The size of the BrightSource plant is thought to produce enough power to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of Californians.

During a national address last October, Obama mentioned the possible benefits of BrightSource Energy's "revolutionary new type of solar power plant."

However, some have doubted that the massive solar plant will actually work.

The Bay Citizen quoted Michael Boyd, president of the nonprofit Californians for Renewable Energy, as saying there is "no evidence" BrightSource's project will succeed.

Boyd complained most of the equipment used at the plant would be manufactured in China and Germany.

"Stimulus money isn't going to jobs here in the U.S. It's going to jobs overseas," he said.
Boyd's group last year reportedly filed an administrative complaint seeking to block the U.S. loan guarantee, alleging in the complaint the solar project "could have the unintended consequences of killing innovation if these projects fail."

In a briefing last month, BrightSource CEO John Woolard was confident his plant would significantly lower the costs of energy.

"We were able to drop costs down significantly," he said. "Ivanpah is the culmination of two and a half decades of work and thinking around solar."

However, the entire solar energy enterprise is now being questioned as overseas manufacturers, particularly China and Taiwan, have produced similar products and services at much lower prices.

Already, the cost of generating power with panels plunged about 37 percent in the past year, Bloomberg reported yesterday, as Chinese factories cut prices. The price slashes pushed three U.S. makers, including Solyndra, into bankruptcy protection in the past quarter.

The news media and lawmaker focus on the Obama administration's use of funds for solar energy could draw focus to Bryson himself, since he chaired the company that received the largest amount of funds.

Globalist, CO2 activist

Besides his position at BrightSource, which he vacated when he was selected as Obama's Commerce pick, Bryson is the former chairman, chief executive officer and president of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison.

He serves on the U.N. secretary-general's advisory group on energy and climate change and as co-chairman of the globalist PCIP, a partner of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In 1970, Bryson co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, with a $400,000 seed grant from the Ford Foundation.

The group is also funded by the Tides Foundation, to which philanthropist George Soros has donated more than $7 million over the years. Tides itself is a major funder of leftist causes, including ACORN, whose founder and former chief organizer, Wade Rathke, is a Tides board member.

The NRDC is a major proponent of fighting so-called global warming. It recently endorsed a document called the Earth Charter, which, Discover the Networks notes, blames capitalism for many of the world's environmental, social and economic problems.

The charter maintains that "the dominant patterns of production and consumption are causing environmental devastation, the depletion of resources, and a massive extinction of species. The benefits of development are not shared equitably and the gap between rich and poor is widening."

The NRDC is a member of the Apollo Alliance. NRDC's president, Frances Beinecke, is on Apollo's board. The NRDC is also listed by Apollo as a funder of the group, having donated between $1,200 to $2,999 to become an Apollo "clean energy benefactor."

The NRDC endorses many Apollo initiatives.

Apollo's New York office is run by Jeff Jones, who founded the Weather Underground with terrorists Bill Ayers and radical Mark Rudd when the three signed an infamous statement calling for a revolution against the American government inside and outside the country to fight and defeat what the group called U.S. imperialism.

Jones currently boasts on his personal website that he has done consulting work for the NRDC.

Apollo has been credited by the Obama administration with helping craft portions of the $787-billion "stimulus" bill signed into law.

The Apollo Alliance has boasted in promotional material that it was behind several of the Obama administration's "green" initiatives, in addition to crafting "green" sections of the stimulus bill.

Among Apollo's board members are a group of extremists including:

Van Jones, President Obama's controversial former "green jobs czar" who resigned in September 2009 after it was exposed he founded a communist revolutionary organization and signed a statement that accused the Bush administration of possible involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Jones also called for "resistance" against the U.S.

Jones himself described the Apollo Alliance's mission as "sort of a grand unified field theory for progressive left causes."
Joel Rogers, a founder of the socialist New Party. WND reported evidence indicating Obama was a New Party member. In an interview with WND, New Party co-founder and Marxist activist Carl Davidson previously recounted Obama's participation with the New Party.

Following publicity of Apollo's radicalism, including scores of articles by WND and investigations by the Fox News Channel, Apollo announced it will merge with the BlueGreen Alliance, a collaboration of large environmental groups and unions.

Globalism

Meanwhile, Bryson is co-chairman of the PCIP, which was founded in 1995 in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations.

The group says it is the "premier international affairs organization focused on policy issues of special resonance to the West Coast."

Its goals include "building our network of globally oriented business, civic, and government leaders." Also, the group aims to convene exchanges with global policy makers and opinion leaders while partnering with organizations around the world to "promote mutual understanding and coordinated action."

The PCIP is funded by the Ford Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Obama's ambassador to France, Charles Rivkin, is a member of the PCIP. Last October, he invited a 29-member delegation from the PCIP to a conference in France for the stated purpose of discussing Arab and Islamic relations in the country.

Rivkin was at the center of a scandal when WikiLeaks released a cable in which he proposed the U.S. Embassy in France initiate a multipronged effort to "engage" and help to "empower" France's Muslim minorities.

Rivkin called the effort a "Minority Engagement Strategy," which was largely directed at Muslims in France.

Other PCIP members abound through the Obama administration, WND has learned.
James B. Steinberg, deputy secretary of state, serves on the PICP board of directors. He also serves on the science and security board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a journal that argued during the Cold War for the U.S. to hand its nuclear weapons to an international organization.

The Bulletin, as WND reported, was founded by scientists who were long accused of spying for the Soviets and passing along vital nuclear secrets.

Vilma S. Martinez, U.S. ambassador to Argentina, is the chairman of the PCIP's Mexico Study Group.

Former Utah Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr., a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, was appointed by Obama as ambassador to China in August 2009. He is a PCIP founding director.

Jeffrey L. Bleich, Obama's appointment for U.S. ambassador to Australia, is a PCIP member.
Diana Farrell, deputy director of the National Economic Council, is a member of the PCIP as well as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bretton Woods Committee. She is a frequent speaker on U.S. global engagement.

Byron Auguste, a member of Obama's White House Council for Community Solutions, serves on the PCIP board. He is also on the board of trustees of the Center for American Progress, which is funded by Soros and led by John Podesta, who served as co-chairman of Obama's transition team.

Last year, PCIP member Steven Myers joined the State Department's advisory committee on international economic policy.

John B. Emerson, appointee for Obama's advisory committee for trade policy and negotiations, is a member of both the PCIP and CFR.

In April, Obama nominated PCIP member Janet Yellen to serve as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve.

PCIP member Alan D. Bersin was appointed commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Last March, Obama appointed PCIP member Michael Camuñez to the position of assistant secretary for market access and compliance in the Department of Commerce.

Ernest James Wilson, a member of the PCIP board, was elected chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in September 2009. He served as a policy advisor on Obama's presidential transition team on matters of communication technology and public diplomacy.

Also on Obama's transition team was Jonathan Greenblat, chairman of the PCIP's energy and environment committee.

The PCIP has some ties to billionaire activist George Soros. Among PCIP fellows is Ahmed Rashid , a Pakistani journalist and writer who is a member of the advisory board of Eurasia Net of the Soros Foundation. He is also a scholar of the Davos World Economic Forum and a consultant for Human Rights Watch.

At the invitation of the then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, he became the first journalist to address the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September 2002 and the first journalist to address NATO ambassadors in Brussels in September 2003.

With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Obama stimulus funded 'guns-to-drug-lords' plan

BELTWAY GUNRUNNERS

Spending bill gave $10 million of taxpayers' funding to effort

By Michael Carl

Just a day after U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., called for Attorney General Eric Holder's removal, alleging a White House connection to the "Project Gunrunner" that allowed weapons to be delivered to Mexican drug lords, confirmation has come that the program originated at the highest levels of the Obama administration.

The link is the $10 million in taxpayer dollars designated to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for Project Gunrunner in Obama's 2009 American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, otherwise known as the Stimulus Bill.

Section 5, Division A, Title II, under the heading of "Office of Justice Programs," says the money is set aside for border regions.

For an additional amount for 'State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance,' $90,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2014, for competitive grants to provide assistance and equipment to local law enforcement along the Southern border and in High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas to combat criminal narcotics activity stemming from the Southern border, of which $10,000,000 shall be transferred to 'Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Salaries and Expenses' for the ATF Project Gunrunner.

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Gun Owners of America President Larry Pratt believes stimulus money was given to a drug dealer to buy guns.

"Ten million dollars, and one of the ways they were spending it was a paid FBI informant who was a drug dealer they had flipped. So he was buying lots of guns with that stimulus money," Pratt said.

Pratt said that the stimulus bill enhanced one industry in particular.

"We can say there's one thing that was stimulated by the stimulus bill and that was the Mexican undertaker business," Pratt said. "Mexican authorities say that 150 people were murdered using these guns."

Listen to an interview with Pratt:

Pratt said that the gun buyer involved was the subject of what he calls an "aspect of tragic comedy."

"This FBI informant was being surveilled by the ATF that was running the Fast and Furious Operation and they had no idea that he was an FBI informant," Pratt observed.

"But obviously they didn't need to be informed because they didn't care. They just wanted the guns to walk," he stated.

Today, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he would support the call for a special prosecutor if members of Congress investigating the issue believe that is the best solution.

Appearing on the Steve Gill show, he said, "The point of our inquiry is to find out who really signed off on this operation. Who is the one who said 'yeah, this is a good thing to do.' It might have sounded like a good idea, but it ended up with the murder of Mr. Terry, a border control agent, and two of the guns were found at the scene of that murder."

A report in the San Francisco Chronicle says that FBI informants were connected to the ATF's Project Gunrunner.

Firearms law analyst and writer David Codrea believes that even if there is evidence to prove that known criminals used taxpayer money to get guns to take to Mexico, nothing is likely to be done with the evidence.

"If left to Holder's Justice Department, nothing, because it shows this had to be top-level DoJ-authorized," Codrea explained.

Reports say other federal agencies have also been drawn into the operation. The DEA, FBI and upper-level DOJ officers, including the U. S. Attorney's office in Phoenix, have been named.

Attorney General Holder's office has not responded to WND's request for comment.

Codrea believes that it's possible that ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson's office was bypassed in decision-making about the operation.

"It's absolutely possible and may even be probable that they bypassed Melson in the operation. However, that does not excuse him from having no control of his agency," Codrea said.

"But this kind of thing cannot take place in your agency unless you have unless you have people ... who are absolutely flat-out lying to you," he said.

Pratt also believes that some of the guns were purchased by the Mexican cartels directly from federal agents.

"One of the founders of the cartel, one of their top 14 directors if you will, a guy whose nickname is El Mamito, has said that he was buying guns directly from the federal government," Pratt explained.

Jesus Rejon Aguilar, nicknamed El Mamito or "Pretty Boy," the third highest ranking member of the drug gang Los Zetas, was captured Monday by Mexican authorities.

Pratt said he believes for the guns to go across at a designated location, there had to be coordination between several federal law enforcement agencies.

"There had to be some kind of a deal with the Border Patrol. ... We know that in that '09 meeting that set-up Fast and Furious, those four or five agencies were all part of the deal," Pratt said.

Pratt said that it's not likely that many of the representatives who voted for the stimulus package were aware that money was allocated for Project Gunrunner.

"Anyone who voted for the stimulus bill has another reason to regret their vote. Obviously they didn't read the bill," Pratt asserted. "They don't read most of the bills up there at all."

Pratt illustrated his comment by citing former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's comment about the health care bill: "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy."

Several border state representatives contacted about the stimulus package and its allocation of $10 million for Project Gunrunner have not returned WND's calls.

Pratt also said that he's supportive of West's call for the removal of Holder and for a special prosecutor to be appointed.

"This is something that is very appropriate. While Rep. Issa was very correct in his choice of words, he said he didn't think Attorney General Eric Holder told the truth," Pratt said. "He could have said it more sharply, that he thinks Eric Holder is a liar, but it comes out the same in the wash."

Codrea believes that the pressure felt by the administration may be the leverage needed for the Justice Department or the White House to force Melson to resign.

"I think they were hoping they could have him quietly transferred out but he saw what was going on and he has to understand which way the wind blows and he has things on higher ups and they want him to keep quiet," Codrea commented.

"It looks like [Melson] decided that going quietly is not in his best interest. What was in his best interest is to lawyer up and to go and talk to the congressional oversight committee," he said.

Listen in an interview with Codrea:

Codrea and Pratt believe that the issue is going to get bigger as more details become public. Pratt believes that if Issa's committee continues its work, the entire scenario may rise to the level of Watergate.

"Just like Watergate became the only thing the Richard Nixon administration could think about, I think 'Fast and Furious' is coming to the point where it's going to be an all consuming issue," Pratt said.

"It's going to take the Obama regime off their stride and they're going to have to be playing defense."

Obama plan: 'Spike' energy costs, kill 1.4 million jobs

LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER

Industry group blasts White House decision to raise electricity bills now

By Drew Zahn

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson

Even before he was elected president, Barack Obama warned he would "bankrupt" the coal industry if necessary and purposefully spike Americans' utility bills in order to force the nation into using less and cleaner forms of energy.

Now, industry partners warn, the White House is making good on that promise by issuing a new rule that will raise some Midwesterners' electricity bills over 23 percent by 2016 and cost an estimated 1.44 million jobs by 2020.

Earlier this week, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized its new Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which requires coal companies to dramatically cut sulfur dioxide and nitrogen emissions – which the EPA says travel across state lines and contribute to ozone pollution – by 2014.

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The EPA claims the new rule will prevent 34,000 premature deaths, 15,000 heart attacks and 400,000 cases of asthma starting in 2014, which would amount to $280 billion a year in health benefits.

But according to the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, the White House plans, in combination with other new EPA rules, would be "among the most expensive ever imposed by the agency" and deal a devastating blow to both family budgets and the job market.

"The EPA is ignoring the cumulative economic damage new regulations will cause," said Steve Miller, president and CEO of ACCCE, in a statement. "Our industry needs adequate time to install clean coal technologies to comply with new regulations. Unfortunately, EPA doesn't seem to care."

He continued, "We urge EPA to take a realistic look at the enormous impact of all the regulations they are considering and how those regulations affect families and businesses. In a time of high unemployment, we should be pursuing sensible policies that create jobs, not eliminate jobs."

Miller's assertions are based on a study conducted for the ACCCE by National Economic Research Associates.

The study details a dramatic leap in the number of coal plants that would need to be retired almost immediately to meet the EPA regulations, a consequent surge in natural gas prices to meet electricity demand, a loss of jobs at four times the pace of new energy job creation and a region-by-region projection of electricity costs through the year 2025.

The projections show the national average retail electricity price jumping 11.5 percent by 2016, with some states, like Kentucky and Tennessee, suffering a 23.5-percent spike.

The chart below details the projected increase:

The EPA contends the rules are needed for health purposes.

"No community should have to bear the burden of another community's polluters or be powerless to prevent air pollution that leads to asthma, heart attacks and other harmful illnesses," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said earlier this week. "These Clean Air Act safeguards will help protect the health of millions of Americans and save lives by preventing smog and soot pollution from traveling hundreds of miles and contaminating the air they breathe."

But Republicans in Congress are among those blasting what they claim are overly burdensome government regulations.

"This Administration proves time and time again that they [sic] just don't understand how its actions crush jobs across the country," Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said in a statement. "Today's economically devastating rule is just the latest strike in the Administration's ongoing war against traditional sources of American energy."

All according to plan?

As WND reported, then-Sen. Barack Obama said in the Democratic primaries that the government should intentionally drive energy bills up through "price signals" in order to force Americans into more environmentally friendly choices.

In a Nov. 9, 2007, interview on Iowa Public Television's "Iowa Press," Obama said, "I think it is important for us to send some price signals to change behavior. You know, if electricity goes up, people start becoming more mindful of their electricity bill."

Perhaps predictive of the EPA's most recent ruling, Obama then clarified how the government could implement the kind price signals that change consumer habits:

"We're going to have to cap the emission of greenhouse gases," Obama said. "That means that power plants are going to have to adjust how they generate power. They will pass on those costs to consumers. … A lot of us who can afford it are going to have to pay more per unit of electricity, and that means we're going to have to change our light bulbs, we're going to have to shut the lights off in our houses."

In a speech two months later, Obama further detailed a long-term, cap-and-trade energy plan that would target coal plants in America.

"Whatever power plants are being built, they would have to meet the rigors of that [carbon-exchange] market and the ratcheted-down caps that are imposed every year," he explained. "So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them, because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."

Thursday, July 7, 2011

'Nazi' police 'kidnap' woman at town hall

ARMED AND DANGEROUS

Outraged mayor: 'I'm not going to quit until I see them in jail'

By Joe Kovacs

A small town in Arizona is suddenly a YouTube sensation after a town-hall meeting devolved into a physical clash as a woman was forcibly removed from speaking during the public portion of the event.

Jennifer "Jade" Jones, 45, of Quartzsite, Ariz., was taken into custody by local police at the behest of Quartzsite councilmembers, over the objections of the mayor, who pleaded with officers not to remove the woman.

The incident took place June 28 during the "call to the public" section of the meeting, as Jones, a pet groomer who also publishes the Desert Freedom Press, was addressing matters of taxation and meeting protocol.

Some councilmembers interrupted Jones as she was addressing the council and audience, ordering her to relinquish the microphone.

Councilman Joe Winslow of Quartzsite, Ariz., led the charge to have Jennifer Jones removed from speaking.

"You may leave, or you may be escorted out," Councilman Joe Winslow warned Jones.

Jones immediately told Winslow, "You can leave or be escorted out as well. You are out of order."

Then, as police Sgt. Fabiola Garcia attempted to take the microphone away from Jones, Mayor Ed Foster came to the Jones' defense and interjected, "Officer, that woman has the floor. You're violating my rules of order here. Sergeant, I have control of the meeting."

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Jones was able to speak for a few moments more, but councilmembers insisted police move in and subdue her.

"Do not resist the officer!" Police Chief Jeff Gilbert instructed Jones, who responded, "I am not resisting!"

When Jones refused to give up the microphone, officers forcibly removed her from the premises, and cited her for disorderly conduct. Jones suffered a torn ligament in her elbow during the scuffle, and was transported to La Paz Regional Hospital.

In an interview with WND, Jones said she was never informed she was "under arrest," and so she'll seek charges of kidnapping and aggravated assault against the officers.

"That's what I'll ask for. It'll be up to the state attorney general," she said. "I've never seen in my entire life such a group of people with such contempt for the law."

Jones, who claims she's been previously harassed by police, says recently some officers – including Chief Jeff Gilbert – have been acting more erratically and dangerously, and says he even gave a speech comparing outspoken citizens like herself to Jared Loughner, the gunman who shot Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson on Jan. 8.

Just three days after the shooting that killed six people and left 14 others injured including the congresswoman, Gilbert quoted a comment published in Jones' paper that read in part: "So Jeff and Q.P.D., the next time you piss off a patriot, think maybe, just maybe they won't be as calm as I am. You think nothing bad will ever happen to you because you are a cop with a 10-cent badge and a gun? Don't be so sure. ... As this economy gets worse and the people get more desperate, remember that desperate people do desperate things. And as people start to lose it, they simply lose it."

Gilbert then explained, "These words are warning signs. The propaganda that's being spread about the local government – these are warning signs. The behavior, the outbursts, the actions that have been taking place in some of these council meetings, they are warning signs."

"'He's setting up to shoot us!' That's what we thought. He's coming up with a pretense to pull a gun," Jones said. "Police are to protect and serve, not to harass and intimidate. It has to stop. Someone's going to get really hurt, not just a torn ligament."

When asked about the actions of the non-partisan town council, Jones said, "I liken them to monkeys in the zoo. They make a lot of noise and throw a lot of feces around, but at the end of the day they're just primates and don't deserve to be writing checks for [a town of] about 3,800 people. They don't deserve to be managing money. They don't act like they're at the top of the food chain. It's embarrassing."

Mayor Ed Foster of Quartzsite, Ariz., says his town is filled with massive corruption among government officials.

Mayor Foster, a retired Marine and former engineer for Wrigley Chewing Gum, is standing by Jones' account, and says the town council and police department are filled with corruption.

"He's just an insane person, that chief of police," the mayor said of Gilbert. "He's a Nazi ... he's completely out of control. He thinks he's running the town."

WND sought comment from Gilbert, but a 9-1-1 dispatcher said the town was dealing with a massive power outage this afternoon, and the chief could not be reached.

Mayor Foster said it's not just the police chief, but also the town manager and tax collector who are creating a terrifying atmosphere.

"People in town are scared to death of them," he said. "It's just a clear pattern of harassment and intimidation by this government. These people have run this town like they owned it. It's got to be fixed and I'm not going to quit until I see them in jail."

The mayor says the council has even precluded him from examining the payroll. He believes he's uncovered some possible financial wrongdoing involving checks being paid to unknown personnel, and he speculates the recipients could be councilmembers themselves.

"They're playing a sleight-of-hand with federal money," Foster said. "I've tried to get the FBI, the governor and attorney general involved, and no one has paid attention. But since this video, people are asking, 'What's going on in Quartzsite?'"

The town of Quartzsite is located some two hours by car west of Phoenix, at the intersection of Interstate 10 and U.S. Highway 95.

"There's nothing but jack-rabbits and coyotes here," noted the mayor. "We're in the middle of nowhere, 40 miles from the nearest Walmart."

Foster calls the councilmembers "idiots depriving people of their First Amendment rights," and thinks a reckoning could soon be forthcoming for them.

"I got 1,200 emails yesterday," he said, as the YouTube video has soared to nearly 40,000 views. "All of a sudden, everyone's commenting. If I were them, I'd be scared to death."

One of those emails was from Robert Bright, stating, "I hope to dear God Jennifer Jones sues your city for every penny she can get! Your type of thuggish governing is why our Founding Fathers of the American colonies decided to throw off the tyrannical rule of King George of England in 1776."

Town officials are also being verbally scorched in online messageboards.

Byron Brunskill commented, "Liberty does not exist in the United States under the rule of people like this council. We need the right of recall of all elected politicians including the Congress and the president of the United States."

Dave Kawasaki said, "People seem to have forgotten just how to control their local governments. I hope the arrestee sues everyone involved, in both personal and professional/elected capacity. I hope she wins enough to bankrupt them all, and I hope she runs for office on the proceeds."

The next council meeting is slated for Tuesday night.

"It promises to be just as dynamic as they've been," Mayor Foster said.

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Monday, July 4, 2011

American Constitution faces 'progressive' threat

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

Look what Obama's buddies plan for founding document

By Aaron Klein

Attorney General Eric Holder

Still more White House officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder, have ties to an effort funded by billionaire George Soros to push for a new, "progressive" U.S. Constitution.

WND previously reported how President Obama's regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, maintained extensive ties to Soros' funding, particularly with regard to a movement that openly seeks to create a "progressive" consensus on what the U.S. Constitution should provide by the year 2020.

Now, it has emerged that Lisa Brown, Obama's staff secretary, served as executive director of the Soros-funded American Constitution Society, ACS, a progressive legal organization that was behind the Constitution scheme.

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Brown's White House responsibilities include managing the flow of information, advice and decision-making between staff members and Obama.

Also, Holder has been closely tied to the ACS, serving on the group's board of directors and even keynoting their 10th anniversary national convention earlier this month.

In 2008, Holder also keynoted their convention. At that event, he reportedly urged young lawyers to get involved in the liberal legal network, saying America would soon be "run by progressives."

"The pendulum is starting to swing. America run by progressives. Really. It's about to happen. So we're going to be looking for people who share our values," he stated, as captured in a YouTube video.

In April 2005, Sunstein opened up a conference at Yale Law School entitled "The Constitution in 2020," which sought to change the nature and interpretation of the Constitution by that year.

The event was sponsored by Soros' Open Society Institute and the Center for American Progress, which is led by John Podesta, who served as co-chair of Obama's presidential transition team. Podesta's center is said to be highly influential in helping to craft White House policy.

The Yale event on the Constitution was also sponsored by the ACS, which has been described as a group meant to counter the work of the Federalist Society, which has been at the forefront of the push for a more conservative judiciary since its launch in 1982.

The ACS is the main organization behind the movement to ensure a more "progressive" Constitution. It has received more that $2.2 million from Soros' Open Society since 2002.

Brown, Obama's staff secretary, wrote an entry on the blog for the "Constitution 2020" conference at Yale Law School in which she decried conservative interpretations of the Constitution.

She wrote: "Conservatives have captured the intellectual initiative in popular and even much elite discourse. Their success in framing and communicating fundamental conservative principles has contributed to real legal and political change over the last two decades. Will we allow narrow and sterile conservative interpretations of our Constitution's vital principles and protections to reshape our national character and control our daily lives? Our answer, on this weekend and on every day of the coming years, is a resounding No."

Like Holder, Sunstein, meanwhile, has spoken at numerous ACS events. For example, he was a speaker at a November 2003 symposium by the American Constitution Society of the University of Chicago School of Law, where Sunstein was a professor.

But it was the 2005 Yale event led in part by Sunstein that has been described as jumpstarting the movement for a "progressive" constitution.

Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University, wrote in a 2009 New York Times Magazine piece about so-called liberal justice: "If this new understanding of legal liberalism can be traced back to a single moment, it was in April 2005, when the American Constitution Society and other progressive groups sponsored a conference at Yale Law School called 'The Constitution in 2020.'"

New 'Bill of Rights'

The Constitution 2020 movement has plotted a strategy for how liberal lawyers and judges might bring such a constitutional regime into being.

Just before his appearance at the Yale conference, Sunstein wrote a blog entry in which he explained he "will be urging that it is important to resist, on democratic grounds, the idea that the document should be interpreted to reflect the view of the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party."

Sunstein has also been pushing for a new socialist-style U.S. bill of rights that, among other things, would constitutionally require the government to offer each citizen a "useful" job in the farms or industries of the nation.

According to Sunstein's new bill of rights, the U.S. government can also intercede to ensure every farmer can sell his product for a good return while the government is granted power to act against "unfair competition" and monopolies in business.

All this and more is contained in Sunstein's 2004 book, "The Second Bill of Rights: FDR'S Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever."

In the work, Sunstein advanced the radical notion that welfare rights, including some controversial inceptions, be granted by the state. His inspiration for a new bill of rights came from President Roosevelt's 1944 proposal of a different, new set of rights.

In his book, Sunstein laid out what he wants to become the new bill of rights, which he calls the Second Bill of Rights:

His mandates include the following:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return that will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment;
The right to a good education.

On one page in his book, Sunstein claims he is "not seriously arguing" his bill of rights be "encompassed by anything in the Constitution," but on the next page he states that "if the nation becomes committed to certain rights, they may migrate into the Constitution itself."

Later in the book, Sunstein argues that "at a minimum, the second bill should be seen as part and parcel of America's constitutive commitments."

With research by Brenda J. Elliott