THE BATHROOM WARS.

There is another "war" looming in American politics : THE BATHROOM WARS .I don’t support people of one biological gender using facilities explicitly identified for the other….but  Did you know that one of the biggest issues in American politics today is not terrorism, not climate change, not the economy, but... whether transgender people should be allowed to go to the bathroom that matches their gender identity? How did this get pushed into the national debate ?  There is something fishy about it , it seems to me when stuff like this get out on the open  it escalates to an open can of worms. It creates national litigation that is senseless , has just the opposite effect of what its intended .   (1)>>When  North Carolina passed HB2, which requires transgender people to use the bathroom that corresponds to the gender of their birth certificate. Fear of transgender women (born male) entering women’s bathrooms has spurred legislation in South Carolina, Georgia (vetoed by the governor), Mississippi, Minnesota and other states.  Question is is how long has this been going on , why now its a problem .? It comes from a confused notion of fear . Why are folks so worried about someone dressing up as a women or a transgender person accessing the ladies room to commit a crime, when the more likely scenario of a man committing a crime in the men's room is the more likely event to happen? Men haven't been dressing as women to do this before, and this law won't make them anymore likely to do it in the future. Public restrooms are not convenient places to commit crimes....they are unpredictably busy, in public places, and children rarely enter them alone. And if someone is stupid enough to try to commit a crime in there, claiming they have the right to be there will not prevent them from being arrested and charged. The right to be there doesn't give the right to commit a crime.Regardless of how you feel about these folks, is it safe or fair for a man who is transitioning to a woman to be forced to use a men’s bathroom, where they could get physically assaulted or worse? It’s not like grown men haven’t beaten the shit out of someone they thought was transgender. It happens, and it’s not uncommon.What I really do not  like about this law is that it gives the state the authority to regulate what businesses do with their facilities. The manufactured debate on same-sex restroom use rights has sunk to predictable lows. This non-issue has been ginned up by the leftist media to corner GOP candidates on a silly, no-win issue. The right shouldn’t have taken the bait.   Donald Trump said Thursday on the "Today" show on NBC that, "There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate. There has been so little trouble, and the problem with what happened in North Carolina is the strife and the economic punishment that they're taking. So I would say that's probably the best way.Cruz, in turn, attacked Trump's view, telling Glenn Beck: "it is simply crazy and the idea that grown men would be allowed alone in a bathroom with little girls -- you don't need to be a behavioral psychologist to realize bad things can happen, and any prudent person wouldn't allow that.Charles Krauthammer, whom Mr. Trump has called a “highly overrated pundit” and “overrated clown” for his biting criticisms of the Trump campaign, said North Carolina’s law is much ado about nothing.“To me, what’s puzzling here, what I really don’t understand — this is a solution in search of an issue,” Mr. Krauthammer said on Fox News’s “Special Report.” “I mean, do we really have an epidemic of transgenders being evil in bathrooms across the country? I haven’t heard of a single case.”

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

(1)>>When  North Carolina passed HB2.So North Carolina passed this bill that essentially says that schools, public agencies, and employers who have multiple occupancy bathrooms on their premises must keep them single sex. The legislation is here, How are they going to KNOW someone is transgender? Most transgenders aren't distinguishable from the sex they identify as, and in all the years they've been using the appropriate restroom for how they identify, dress, look, and act, no one has known the difference. Are they now going to start doing genital inspections at the restroom doors? Or are people who don't look "sufficiently" feminine going to be hounded out of the women's restroom, even though they're biologically female and not transgender at all?

The Currency Wars........

The CURRENCY WARS....
of the Federal Reserve, it's history 
& the Curious case of Mrs. Tubman. 

Mrs . Tubman kicked slave holderAndrew Jackson off 
the 20 $ bill , but
in the wider scheme, is there
 more to the revamping of
the American dollar? 

In 2015  President Obama reportedly had plans on changing the  (1)>>U.S. dollar to the euro, Demonstrating another bold example of presidential authority, sources had  reported Barack Obama has ordered the Federal Reserve to adopt the euro-exchange beginning last December 15, 2015.  The changing face of our national currency recently may have reflected this bold executive order. Our modern American money in the relative sense is boring, its less colorful , but it's green back image has made it the subject of counterfeiters for decades. The value of the American dollar has been in decline .  For a country with a budget deficit in excess of $1 trillion a year, the consequences of losing standing as the world's reserve currency would be dire. The market continues to rise because of money printing only. This indicates a dilution of the value of the dollar and euro. Even at the current record levels the market valuations are distorted and are inadequate to stimulate growth because of the dilution of capital. If the dollar supply has tripled since 2008, then the securities markets should reflect a tripling of valuations to reflect where they really are. We must be in a Bear market! Changing the dollar might be the best thing in increasing the world value of the dollar. Its really a global marketing scheme to change the appearance of the American green. We all know it intuitively, and the designers in the US know it explicitly. What's up with ours? It's dull, non-memorable (pop quiz for Americans: who is on the $5 dollar bill? The $10? The $20? What building is on the back?) and as inspiring as a parking ticket.And US dollars get an F on usability! The distinctions between one note and another are too subtle, and there's no way to use them if you're blind. It was ONLY till the last two decades that American paper money has added a "security" feature , mostly borrowed from the format in Europe and other nations. How is it a security feature? Making different bills different colors to me makes the most sense even if it may cost more because people can accidentally mix up different bills. In my country when the 50 dollar bill was introduced there were people accidentally mixing it up with the 10 dollar bill because it was the same color so the government decided to just change the color and design to avoid that from happening again. Again these updates for our money take too long , in 200 years the American dollar sort of evolved from an artistically designed , (2)>>all embracing multi-cultural , etc . To the bland

Current Specimen of 100$ . Redesigned
for security reasons . Hate to
see Benjamin go if he is
replaced for political Correctness. 

Federal Reserve notes.  Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew announced on Wednesday that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing would replace the portrait of Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill in favor of one featuring both Hamilton and a woman to be named later. But the broader remaking of the nation’s paper currency, which President Obama welcomed on Wednesday, may well have captured a historical moment for a multicultural, multiethnic and multiracial nation moving contentiously through the early years of a new century.The selection of the three historic figures is noteworthy for a number of reasons, but the fact that they're all either African-American or women, or in Anderson's case, both, is a significant milestone for American currency, which traditionally has only featured white people and has very rarely included a woman. It was not immediately clear when the new $5 

When was the last time American
currency showed more diversity?
Old Money was better, an American Indian
Chief . (Sitting Bull I believe?) 

bill will go into circulation.Several million people have responded since Mr. Lew issued an unprecedented invitation to the public last June to help redesign the nation’s cash. His question: Which woman from American history should be chosen as the first on paper currency since Martha Washington briefly graced the $1 silver certificate in the late 19th century? The outpouring of responses about the forthcoming redesign of the $10 bill has surprised administration officials both by its numbers and by the volume of unanticipated complaints, forcing Mr. Lew to miss his self-imposed December deadline for an announcement and leaving unclear when he will decide. There is perhaps a real reason to all this , the global market . The dollar has lagged , by understanding that in 2015 The International Monetary Fund is expected to a new reserve currency alternative to the US Dollar.The dollar’s role as the world’s primary reserve currency helps all of us Americans by keeping interest rates low. Foreign countries buy United States Treasury debt not just as an investment, but because dollar-denominated assets are the best way to hold foreign exchange reserves.And on Oct 20th of this year, the IMF is expected to announce a reserve currency alternative to the U.S. dollar, which will send hundreds of billions of dollars moving around the world, literally overnight.
THE FEDERAL RESERVE  .

The Eye of Providence (or the all-seeing eye of God)
the Great Seal of the United States
Federal Reserve .

Perhaps one of the instigators to the concept of the "new-money " is One of the most fraudulent institutions ever perpetrated on the American people and the world, is the (3)>>Federal Reserve System. The U.S. financial system needed remaking. The United States had a long but less than illustrious history with central banking. Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury secretary, believed a national bank would stabilize the new government’s shaky credit and support a stronger economy — and was an absolute necessity to exercise the new republic’s constitutional powers.But Hamilton’s proposal faced opposition, particularly in the agricultural South, where lawmakers believed a central bank would primarily benefit the mercantile North, with its large commercial centers of Boston, New York and Philadelphia. “What was it drove our forefathers to this country?” said James “Left Eye” Jackson, a fiery little congressman from Georgia. “Was it not the ecclesiastical corporations and perpetual monopolies of England and Scotland? Shall we suffer the same evils to exist in this country?” Some founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, believed that the bank was unconstitutional. Running an economy without a central bank empowered to issue paper money caused more than a few problems in late 19th-century America. For example, the supply of dollars was tied to private banks’ holdings of government bonds. That would have been fine if the need for dollars was fixed over time. But one overarching lesson of financial history is that that’s not the case. In times of financial panic, for example, everybody wants cash at the same time (that’s what happened in fall 2008).Without a central, government-backed bank able to create money on demand, the American banking system wasn’t able to provide it. 
FEDERAL RESERVE SCAMS.
The system wasn’t elastic, meaning there was no way for its supply of money to adjust with demand. People would try to withdraw more money from one bank than it had available, the bank would fail, and then people from other banks would withdraw their funds, creating a vicious cycle that would lead to widespread bank failures and the contraction of lending across the economy. The result was economic depression. The Federal Reserve was audited for the first time in 2011 and the results were generally ignored by the press. But that audit found that the Federal reserve had grossly exceeded the amount authorized by Congress and the President to spend on the TARP program. The total bailout amount authorized was about 800 billion or so. So, how much did they hand out? Oh, only about 20 times that amount - a mind boggling $16,000,000,000,000 or $53,000 for every man, women and child in the US. What the Hell happened to the $800 billion limit, since over 800 billion went to Goldman Sachs alone? You might like to see where most of the money went. Here are some of the bigger recipients:

Citigroup: $2.5 trillion ($2,500,000,000,000)
Morgan Stanley: $2.04 trillion ($2,040,000,000,000)
Merrill Lynch: $1.949 trillion ($1,949,000,000,000)
Bank of America: $1.344 trillion ($1,344,000,000,000)
Barclays PLC (United Kingdom): $868 billion ($868,000,000,000)
Bear Sterns: $853 billion ($853,000,000,000)
Goldman Sachs: $814 billion ($814,000,000,000)
Royal Bank of Scotland (UK): $541 billion ($541,000,000,000)
JP Morgan Chase: $391 billion ($391,000,000,000)
Deutsche Bank (Germany): $354 billion ($354,000,000,000)
UBS (Switzerland): $287 billion ($287,000,000,000)
Credit Suisse (Switzerland): $262 billion ($262,000,000,000)
Lehman Brothers: $183 billion ($183,000,000,000)
Bank of Scotland (United Kingdom): $181 billion ($181,000,000,000)
BNP Paribas (France): $175 billion ($175,000,000,000)
Wow! I especially like the money given to France, since they have been such a close friend and ally. But let's ask a few questions here. How or why did these all these institutions get themselves so overextended? Were they simply mega-gamblers using both client and borrowed money for speculation in the quest for mega profits? But none of the people who were responsible for the disappearance of so much money seem to have been held responsible for anything other than their mansions and mega incomes.Another interesting fact or two needs to come out here. In the entire existence of the US, the total National debt accumulated is about 12 trillion - yet the Fed chose create 16 trillion dollars out of thin air and give it away. That 16 trillion comes from somewhere - either becoming a part of the national debt or ultimately devaluing the dollar by a like amount. They sure as Hell did not have the money in the bank. Next, our total gross domestic product is only about 14 trillion, which is less than the amount handed out. So, we have a quasi-governmental agency acting way beyond their authority and giving more money than we even have. We have fund managers continuing to get their bonuses in spite of the fact that their companies are running on money given to them by us. Yeah us - you and me.But those in power may argue that we are looking at trees instead of seeing the forest and that the quick and decisive action of Bernanke, Paulson (the ex-pres of Goldman Sachs)and Geithner prevented a global run on the banks and economic meltdown which would have cost us far more than the horrendous amount they spent of zero interest loans and giveaways.Do you remember any outrage by the press when the report came out? I don't. The really big question is: Does the end justify the means? Are these folks crooks or saviors?

THE TRUTH ABOUT HARRIET TUBMAN. 

The latest act of US Imperialism stroking its psychopathic ego is adding Harriet Tubman to the $20 bill. Does Harriet Tubman deserve notoriety for her incredible acts of heroism against the American system of slavery and oppression? Of Course! But, is putting Harriet Tubman’s picture on a Federal Reserve note which symbolizes that very system, respect? Hell No!Harriet Tubman deserves all the praise society can give to her, and we are certainly not claiming that she isn’t worthy of the predilection to land her on the $20 bill. However, this woman was an enemy of the state, and it was for this reason that she was great. Tubman didn’t go around carrying an American flag chanting ‘USA! USA!’ as she freed the slaves. She risked life and limb, working with other activists and forming the underground railroad to free people from their 100% entirely legal bondage.By putting a picture of this prodigious woman on a piece of paper, the US government acts as if they were the ones who created her and fomented her courageous acts — when, in fact, it was the US government that Harriet Tubman was fighting against.When Harriet Tubman died in in March of 1913, the US $20 bill bore George Washington’s portrait and the inscription “THIS CERTIFIES THAT THERE HAVE BEEN DEPOSITED IN THE TREASURY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TWENTY DOLLARS IN GOLD COIN PAYABLE TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND.”Later that year, Congress passed, and US president Woodrow Wilson signed into law, the Federal Reserve Act. The following year the Federal Reserve issued a new $20 bill, adorned with the portrait of Grover Cleveland. In 1928, the first $20 bill bearing the visage of Andrew Jackson appeared. Even though the Federal Reserve had taken over the creation of “money” (loosely defined) from the US Treasury, the note still promised that it could be redeemed for gold at the US Treasury, or gold or “lawful money” at any Federal Reserve Bank.Nearly 90 years later, as the Treasury announces that Tubman’s likeness will grace the next $20 bill, Federal Reserve Notes are just paper, no longer redeemable in gold but sustained only by the faith of buyers and sellers in a government nearly $20 trillion of its own debased dollars in actual debt and even deeper in the hole when unfunded promises of future spending are taken into account.Due to a cumulative inflation rate of more than 2,300% since 1913, a $20 bill today will buy goods valued at 83 cents in 1913 currency.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

 (1)>>U.S. dollar to the euro. Ha ha  !. They nearly had us FOOLED , but according to Snopes.com   the story was reported as "false" , the National Report, a web site that publishes outrageous fake news stories such as "IRS Plans to Target Leprechauns Next," "Boy Scouts Announce Boobs Merit Badge," and "New CDC Study Indicates Pets of Gay Couples Worse at Sports, Better at Fashion Than Pets of Straight Couples.". There MIGHT BE some ring of truth to the story . However . As of recently China is calling for a global currency to replace the dominant dollar, showing a growing assertiveness on revamping the world economy ahead of next week's London summit on the financial crisis.The surprise proposal by Beijing's central bank governor reflects unease about its vast holdings of U.S. government bonds and adds to Chinese pressure to overhaul a global financial system dominated by the dollar and Western governments. Both the United States and the European Union brushed off the idea. For decades, the dollar has been the world's most widely used currency. Many governments hold a large portion of their reserves in dollars. Crude oil and many commodities are priced in dollars. Business deals around the world are done in dollars.But the financial crisis has highlighted how America's economic problems — and by extension the dollar — can wreak havoc on nations around the world. China is in a bind. To keep the value of its currency steady — some say undervalued — the Chinese government has to recycle its huge trade surpluses, and the biggest, most liquid option for investing them is U.S. government debt.Now Goldman Sachs (GS) believes the U.S. dollar will catch up to the euro and the two currencies will be about equal by the end of next year.That's a dramatic turnaround considering €1 bought you $1.60 back in July 2008. The two currencies haven't been equal since late 2002. Currently €1 fetches $1.18 in the international markets -- a much better rate for any American traveling to Europe. The European banks that received the Fed's funds are directly linked/partnered with banks Stateside. No independent Euro bank received bailout money.Everyone knows the Euro, the currency that will never devalue, is in trouble. There is a very easy fix ... print more Euros. But doing that send down the value of the Euro, the currency that will never devalue. In steps the Fed. The Fed is bailing out European banks right under our noses. They are doing it through a new vehicle called currency swaps'. The European Central Bank (ECB) creates a new issuance of currency, but instead of distributing it to Euro banks as would normally happen, they transfer the whole issuance to the Fed Reserve Bank in NYC, where it is held on the balance sheets as a positive asset. And as long as the new currency issuance remains "undistributed", the Euro does not devalue. In exchange, the Fed creates a new issuance of dollars, and transfers then to the ECB. The ECB then distributes the new dollars to Euro banks where the new money shows up on the books as a positive asset adding needed liquidity to the troubled banksAlso keep in mind a currency does not immediately devalue with a new issuance and distribution. It takes a little while for everyone to click into the influx of new money and adjust values accordingly. (2)>>all embracing multi-cultural . Abolitionist Harriet Tubman's image will appear on a new series of $20 bills, becoming the first African-American to appear on U.S. paper currency and the first woman in more than a century, the Treasury Department announced Wednesday.In replacing replace President Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill, the Treasury Department abandoned a previous plan to have a woman replace founding father Alexander Hamilton on the $10.The $5, $10 and $20 bills will all be redesigned over the next four years, but will be put into production at various times over the next decade.The long-awaited currency redesign will have a cascading effect on bills of all denominations over the next decades, as new security features are introduced to make the bills harder to counterfeit. New bills will also have tactile features to make them easier for blind citizens to distinguish.The back of the $20, which now shows the White House, will be redesigned to include the White House and Jackson, whose statute stands across the street in Lafayette Park.(3)>>Federal Reserve System.  To pry information out of the Federal Reserve that should have been made public long ago. We now know that the Fed's secret $7.7 trillion lending program wasn't just the most massive bank bailout ever seen, and it wasn't just free money for mega-bankers - though it was certainly both of those things. It was also the greatest hoax in stock market history.No, scratch that. It was the greatest hoax in the history of money. And it was built on lies. 

Saudi Arabia and 9-11 ( Leaked 28 pages?)

 Saudi Arabia and 9-11 ( Leaked 28 pages?) 

(1)>>The still-censored “28 pages” implicating the Saudi government in 9/11, “60 Minutes” last weekend said the Saudi role in the attacks has been “soft-pedaled” to protect America’s delicate alliance with the oil-rich kingdom.When the president leaves for a trip to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday an unresolved issue will go with him: did the Saudis play some role in supporting the hijackers responsible for the attacks on September 11th? My first "reaction" is are you kidding ? (1.2)>>Was this  ever "classified" as " TOP SECRET" ? . Hell no  I remember the Micheal Moore film called  (1.2b) Fahrenheit 9/11  Moore implicated the White House  ( George D Bush ) in allowing relatives of Osama bin Laden to leave the United States without being interviewed at length by the FBI. In his narration in the movie, Moore states that "At least six private jets and nearly two dozen commercial planes carried the Saudis and the Bin Laden's family  out of the U.S. after September 13." Moore based this statement on the research of Craig Unger, author of House of Bush, House of Saud, whom he interviewed for the film. Passenger lists were found in the Bush web site back then . We should have already guessed that The Saudi kingdom’s involvement was deliberately covered up at the highest levels of our government. And the cover up goes beyond locking up 28 pages of the Saudi report in a vault in the US Capitol basement. Saudi Arabia has reportedly told the Obama administration and congressional leaders that it will sell billions of dollars in U.S. financial assets if Congress passes a bill to make the Saudi government legally responsible for any role in the 9/11 attacks.Congress pass a bill that could hold the kingdom responsible for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the New York Times reported on Friday.The  Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir told U.S. lawmakers last month that (1.3)>>"Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in Treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts."The bill, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year, would take away immunity from foreign governments in cases "arising from a terrorist attack that kills an American on American soil." Last year a U.S. judge on dismissed claims against Saudi Arabia by families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, who accused the country of providing material support to al Qaeda. U.S. District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan said Saudi Arabia had sovereign immunity from damage claims by families of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the attacks, and from insurers that covered losses suffered by building owners and businesses.“The allegations in the complaint alone do not provide this court with a basis to assert jurisdiction over defendants,” Daniels wrote.The victims had sought to supplement their case with new allegations to avoid that result, including based on testimony they secured from Zacarias Moussaoui, a former al Qaeda operative imprisoned for his role in the attacks.

What's in the missing pages? LEAKED.

In 2004, the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence produced an 838 page report outlining the events leading up to the September 11, 2001, attacks.But one giant piece of the puzzle was missing — the final chapter — which was blanked out by the Bush administration for reasons of “national security”.Known to contain vital information pertaining to the attacks, both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations have refused to unseal the documents, claiming its release would jeopardise national security. In later years, the FBI would also refuse to unseal the pages.Those sources say the pages missing from the 9/11 congressional inquiry report — which comprise the entire final chapter dealing with “foreign support for the September 11 hijackers” — details “incontrovertible evidence” gathered from both CIA and FBI case files of official Saudi assistance for at least two of the Saudi hijackers who settled in San Diego.Some information has leaked from the redacted section, including a flurry of pre-9/11 phone calls between one of the hijackers’ Saudi handlers in San Diego and the Saudi Embassy, and the transfer of some $130,000 from then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar’s family checking account to yet another of the hijackers’ Saudi handlers in San Diego. It all signals that the (2)>>decades-long bipartisan policy of always keeping the Saudis happy, and never rocking the boat, may be coming to an end. In Sarasota, Florida, a federal judge is reviewing 80,000 pages of documents that relate to a prominent Saudi family and its extensive contacts with three of the hijackers when they attended flight school in Sarasota. The " family"  ( Saudi and Laden ) abruptly left the U.S. for Saudi Arabia a few days before the attacks, leaving dinner on the table and a brand new car in the driveway “as though they’d been tipped something was going to happen, and they’d better not be in the country,” said Graham. One member of the family is described as a high-level adviser to the Saudi royal family. The FBI initially rebuffed a Freedom of Information request about the case, Graham said, prompting him to observe that the “pervasive pattern of covering up” the Saudi role in 9/11 extends to all U.S. institutions.  The New York Post had this to add to the "Leak" :

Some information has leaked from the redacted section, including a flurry of pre-9/11 phone calls between one of the hijackers’ Saudi handlers in San Diego and the Saudi Embassy, and the transfer of some $130,000 from then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar’s family checking account to yet another of the hijackers’ Saudi handlers in San Diego. An investigator who worked with the JTTF in Washington complained that instead of investigating Bandar, the US government protected him — literally. He said the State Department assigned a security detail to help guard Bandar not only at the embassy, but also at his McLean, Va., mansion.The source added that the task force wanted to jail a number of embassy employees, “but the embassy complained to the US attorney” and their diplomatic visas were revoked as a compromise.Former FBI agent John Guandolo, who worked 9/11 and related al Qaeda cases out of the bureau’s Washington field office, says Bandar should have been a key suspect in the 9/11 probe.“The Saudi ambassador funded two of the 9/11 hijackers through a third party,” Guandolo said. “He should be treated as a terrorist suspect, as should other members of the Saudi elite class who the US government knows are currently funding the global jihad.”But Bandar held sway over the FBI.

However in 2009 WiKi Leaks "obtained" a document is still available about terror financing and accusing  Saudi Arabia  of funding terrorism using "charities"  . The Cable was wired as TERRORIST FINANCE: ACTION REQUEST FOR SENIOR LEVEL ENGAGEMENT ON TERRORISM FINANCE. (source: https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09STATE131801_a.html ) 

(1) aggressive action to identify, disrupt and deter terrorist donors, fundraisers and facilitators; (2) appropriate legal measures, including effective prosecution, to hold terrorist financiers and facilitators publicly accountable and to send a strong message of deterrence to current and would-be donors that their actions face significant legal and social repercussions.

The Political Response. 
 Defending his attention-grabbing assertions that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was an enormous mistake facilitated by the George W. Bush administration’s misleading of the American people, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. indirectly referred to 28 classified pages ( see above WiKi Leaks URL ) said to link the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the 9/11 attacks.“It wasn’t the Iraqis that knocked down the World Trade Center. We went after Iraq, we decimated the country, Iran’s taking over…but it wasn’t the Iraqis, you will find out who really knocked down the World Trade Center, because they have papers in there that are very secret, you may find it’s the Saudis, okay? But you will find out,” Trump said at a Wednesday campaign event in Bluffton, South Carolina. On the eve of New York’s crucial primary, another prominent Democrat broke ranks with President Obama over a bill to allow 9/11 families to sue Saudi Arabia.Mayor de Blasio said Monday that he stands with Sen. Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, who have blasted Obama for trying to scuttle the legislation. Obama told CBS News that we can't allow bipartisan legislation subjecting the Saudis to potential liability for terrorism ... or else other countries could retaliate against the US. Why would the U.S. be worried about retaliation by other countries ... being held accountable for terrorism? Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry should get behind 9/11 families and tell Saudi Arabia that if they follow through with their threats, the U.S. will suspend foreign aid and inflict other financial hardship on them

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

(1)>>The still-censored “28 pages”. In response to heightened media attention to the 28 pages in September 2014, the White House said the president, earlier that summer, tasked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper with conducting an intelligence community review of the 28 pages for potential declassification.Inexplicably, and with essentially no follow-up by national media to date, that review of just 28 pages has already taken far longer than the entire, unprecedented congressional inquiry that produced them. As we reported here last summer, in just six months the 2002 inquiry. The high-profile 60 Minutes segment—which is positioned for high viewership as it follows coverage of the Masters Tournament—comes at a particularly sensitive time for the White House, as the president will visit Saudi Arabia on April 21. 9/11 family members say that, in 2009 and 2011, Obama assured them he would declassify the 28 pages, yet that promise has gone unfulfilled. (1.2)>>Was this  ever "classified" . The question is being raised in the wake of a renewed push to declassify 28 pages of a 838-page congressional report on the worst terror attack on American soil.The so-called "28 pages" are locked away in a secure basement room at the Capitol and although they can be read by members of Congress, the pages remain classified.  (2)>>decades-long bipartisan policy .  Sen . Graham. He's been agitating to release this material since the moment it was classified. Now, though, Senator Chuck Schumer is behind a bill to release what's contained in the 28 papers to the plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought by 9/11 survivors against the Saudi government. Both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bernie Sanders are supporting Schumer's bill. The White House is opposed to it, alas, and has resorted to some enthusiastic tap-dancing on the topic. (1.3)>>"Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in Treasury securities .  I say let them , who cares , Families who lost loved ones in the terror attacks say President Obama, who is lobbying intensively to derail the bill, according to The New York Times, is on the wrong side of the issue.  (1.2b) Fahrenheit 9/11. In his film "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore explored the complex ties between Bush administration officials and associates, the Saudi Royal family, and those believed to have carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Form 2013, the New York Post, a property owned by conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch, published an investigative report alleging the involvement of Saudi Arabian government officials in the 9/11 terrorist attacks titled “Inside the 9/11 Coverup.”The thesis of the piece is that the 9/11 hijackers were not only mostly from Saudi Arabia but had received financial and operational support from Saudi government officials and that after the attacks the Saudi government used its political connections in the Bush White House to coverup their involvement.It should if you saw the documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 which was endlessly maligned in conservative media outlets, particularly those owned by Rupert Murdoch such as Fox News and the NY Post. But now it seems, almost ten years after ripping the film and calling the filmmaker a conspiracy theorist, the conservative Murdoch media machine is conceding the argument.

The Rigging of the American election .

Who said politics was fair and square ? Remember After the grueling 36-day Florida recount battle, Al Gore finally conceded the presidency to George W. Bush on December 13, 2000.The presidential election of 2000 hinged on the outcome in Florida. First, the television networks said that (1)>>Vice President Al Gore had carried the state. Then, the state’s election was considered “too close to call.” Then, the networks declared Texas Governor George W. Bush the winner. The presidential election was so close that it took five weeks to determine the winner. Vice President Al Gore carried the East and West Coasts and inland industrial cities, while Texas Governor George W. Bush won much of the Midwest and Plains, as well as the South. Gore gained a half-million more votes than Bush, but Gore lost the Electoral College when he lost Florida. Bush's official margin in Florida was by 537 votes.With the presidency hanging on a few hundred votes in a single state, there were lawsuits and requests for recounts. Bitter disputes centered on confusing ballots, missing names from voting rolls, and subjecting minority voters to multiple requests for identification. The punch card ballots posed a major problem--they were vulnerable to voter error. Many ballots were called into question because voters failed to punch a hole all the way through the ballot. In an extraordinary late-night decision, the U.S. Supreme Court halted a recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court. A narrow majority of the Justices said that the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court violated the principle that “all votes must be treated equally.” It also ruled that there was not enough time to conduct a new count that would meet constitutional muster.The 2000 presidential election was the first in 112 years in which a president lost the popular vote but captured enough states to win the electoral vote. We could be seeing this whole scenario again , and worse.  Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump erupted on “Fox & Friends” Monday morning after a weekend that saw (2)>>Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas sweep all of Colorado’s 34 delegates without any votes being cast by citizens in a traditional primary

process.“I’ve gotten millions … of more votes than [Sen. Ted] Cruz, and I’ve gotten hundreds of delegates more, and we keep fighting, fighting, fighting, and then you have a Colorado where they just get all of these delegates, and it’s not [even] a system,” Trump said, during the Fox News broadcast. “There was no voting. I didn’t go out there to make a speech or anything. There’s no voting.”His comments came after Cruz won the remaining 13 delegates at the weekend’s convention, bringing his total for the state to 34, an outcome he described as unfair and just shy of illegal. Trump referenced Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who has won eight of the past nine Democratic contests, noting that people still say he doesn't have a path to the nomination."I watch Bernie. He wins, he wins, he keeps winning, winning and winning, and then I see he's got no chance. They always say he's got no chance. Why doesn't he have a chance?" Trump asked during a rally in Rochester, N.Y."Because the system is corrupt. (3)>>And it's worse on the Republican side."Trump called the system "crooked." His Colorado campaign was steamrolled by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, even though Republicans point out that this year’s rules — in which hundreds of delegate candidates elected at the March 1 caucuses run for 34 slots at the state convention — have been known since August.The Colorado outcome was no outlier. In the last two weeks, Mr. Trump has suffered setbacks in six other states — Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, North Dakota and South Carolina — as the Cruz campaign nibbles at the front-runner’s delegate count at state conventions.

Americans Wakes UP!.

A protester dressed as Lady Liberty
is arrested at Capitol Hill DC.

The protesters arrived at the U.S. Capitol Building in D.C. after marching 150 miles from the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia over the course of a week as a part of the Democracy Spring campaign. Upon arriving, they engaged in a peaceful sit-in outside the Capitol, with the goal of staying there for another week.The (4)>>Democracy Spring website says the campaign’s goal is to “demand a Congress that will take immediate action to end the corruption of big money in our politics and ensure free and fair elections in which every American has an equal voice.” Furthermore, their proposals include support of the Government by the People Act & Fair Elections Now Act, the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2015 & Voter Empowerment Act of 2015; and the Democracy for All Amendment.The website reports that over 3,600 people have pledged to take part in this act of civic disobedience, though a final number has yet to be confirmed. Police were quickly called to the scene, and they began arresting people not even an hour after the protest begun.Capitol Police were on scene and law enforcement used buses to transport those arrested to booking stations. Demonstrators chanted "one person, one vote" as well as "where is CNN?" in response to the cable network's lack of coverage at the event. Capitol Police said the protesters were arrested when they refused to leave the steps. Over the course of the afternoon, Capitol Police had cordoned off the largest section of the crowd in the middle of the Capitol campus, sectioning off a few hundred protesters who were standing on the Capitol steps and refused to leave. Police announced that the latter group was under arrest, but would have to wait until officers could get buses out to

the Capitol to remove them.But given the significance of the issue of big money in politics, several protesters said that they were disappointed with the turnout, which organizers had pegged at approximately 1,000 people.If movement organizers have their way, there will be more. The event is mobilizing a week of sit-ins at the Capitol building — over 3,500 have pledged to be arrested — in what organizers hope will become a series of intensifying waves of protest meant to highlight the influence of money in politics. In an election cycle that's already seen Black Lives Matter and other protesters change the conversation among candidates, Democracy Spring is billing itself as 2016's first full-stage activist production.When you examine these media narratives, a troubling pattern emerges that goes beyond the political establishment’s self-interest. You begin to see that American corporate media also functions as an arm of the political machine, protecting establishment candidates while attacking — or dismissing — candidates who seem non-establishment.If we ran our elections differently, we wouldn't have to worry so much about the influence of money on elected officials. The problem is that it takes a lot of money to campaign and we don't want to get to a point where the only people who can run and hold office are the wealthy. So naturally, that means that anyone running for office has to get money to do so.  Our campaigns are too long and cost too much money. The need to constantly build a campaign war chest distracts legislators from what they are supposed to be doing. We should limit the time frame that campaigns can be conducted and they should be publicly funded - with outside money being illegal. Each candidate gets exactly the same amount of money from the gov for their campaigns and gets a limited amount of time to campaign. It's the only way to make campaigns fair and everyone is protected from accusations of having been influenced by money. The 'public' does the funding because the elected officials should be beholden to no one but the public'.The vote of the lowest beggar on the filthiest street corner matters as much as that of the richest entrepreneur in the most lavish estate. Wealth, privilege, and status afford many things in this world: luxuries, a higher standard of living, a higher degree of personal freedom, and even better access to essential services like medical care. But even granted that, the hope of liberty never ceases, because the destitute and the dispossessed are not so in the political realm. Their home, their clothes, their life may not be as valuable as those of the rich man, but their vote is worth exactly the same, and through this great equalizer, there is hope that those other iniquities may be rectified.

Cleaverly rigged outcomes.

If you believe that the ruling class would leave it up to the voters to determine who gets elected, you should really think again. Every single candidate who truly challenges the status quo becomes a target.This year is one of the worst years actually for (5)>>voter fraud, as it’s been caught on video – numerous times.What we are witnessing — for the first time on a large scale — is the political establishment’s true role in selecting the president of the United States. The illusion of choice has become apparent. The establishment anoints their two picks for president, and the country proceeds to argue vehemently over the two candidates they are spoon-fed. This dynamic is reminiscent of a prophetic 1998 quote from philosopher Noam Chomsky:“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

(1)>>Vice President Al Gore had carried the state. But that dispute encompassed much more than just the US Supreme Court’s decision, which in truth did not even end the fight. Rather, the end came the next day, December 13, when Gore announced he would not attempt to renew the recount through additional proceedings in Florida’s courts. Had he done so, he and Bush conceivably might have pursued their fight all the way to Congress, as Hayes and Tilden had over the 1876 election. If Bush-versus-Gore had reached Congress it would have been the first real test of the impenetrably ambiguous Electoral Count Act of 1887, with unpredictable consequences. Thus it was Gore’s concession of December 13, and not the Court’s ruling of the previous day, that truly ended the fight for the presidency as a practical matter. The studies also show that Gore likely would have won a statewide recount of all undervotes and overvotes, which are ballots that included multiple votes for president and were thus not counted at all. However, his legal team never pursued this action.The studies also support the belief that more voters went to the polls in Florida on Election Day intending to vote for Gore than for Bush.Even 15 years after the election, partisans on each side cherry-pick various scenarios that would have favored their candidate.(2)>>Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Last year , sparred with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews over his proposal for judicial retention elections during an interview on “Hardball” Wednesday night, at one point debating the judicial propriety of allowing ballots to be recounted in Florida during the historically close 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore.The Texas Republican senator and presidential candidate said he is “reluctant to call for elections,” adding that it “makes him sad” but that he has done so because “a majority of the justices are not honoring their judicial oaths.”“Is that the solution? Elections?” Matthews countered.“Look, if unelected judges are going to seize every major policy issue in this country — you know, there was a time…” Cruz said.Matthews interjected: “They seized the presidency in 2000. You did not complain! The Supreme Court said no to the state of Florida: ‘You can’t recount, even though it’s a close election, you are not allowed to recount. We’re giving this to our guy, 5-4 Republican vote in the Supreme Court.’ If there was ever a case of partisanship or ideology getting out of hand, it was 2000, and you loved it.” (3)>>And it's worse on the Republican side. The GOP establishment ideologues made it clear from the word GO that they were NOT going to allow Donald Trump to become the GOP nominee. They hit the airwaves, internet forums, and press with every conceivable dirty trick to taint Trump as a degenerate madman unworthy of the Oval Office - as if the present occupant embodied the ideal type. The GOP establishment have also made it equally clear that they would pull out every trick in the book to BLOCK Trump even if he should receive the number of required primary votes .(4)>>Democracy Spring .On its website and in press releases, "Democracy Spring" said "hundreds" have been arrested so far, and reports that 3,500 people from 33 different states have pledged to join the protests this week.They are pushing for a series of legislative actions, including the passage of four bills aimed at reducing "the influence of money in politics" while seeking to "expand and protect voting rights." (5)>>voter fraud. It’s easy to write software to make a “selected” candidate win an election. It’s easy to set it so that some given percentage of all votes get counted for the one who they want to win . For all our projections and detailed information for each district, please download  Monopoly Politics 2016 spreadsheet (This version has been updated to reflect the final outcomes of races not decided by 11/6/14, and will be continuously updated to reflect seats that will be open during elections in 2016. The original spreadsheet can be found here). As described more fully below, the spreadsheet allows you to simulate projections if voters nationally favor Republicans or Democrats and to simulate outcomes with all incumbents seeking re-election or if every seat were open. 80 percent of the 2016 votes will be cast on electronic voting machines, and we have no way of verifying their accuracy. And here is video of a computer programmer testifying that he was hired to rig the vote count in an election in Florida. As this man asserts, there are two ways to avoid this type of voter fraud: have a paper trail and access to the source code. Both are denied to the American public.