A new report issued today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that the overall suicide rate rises and falls with the state of the economy — dating all the way back to the Great Depression.
The report, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that suicide rates increased in times of economic crisis: the Great Depression (1929-1933), the end of the New Deal (1937-1938), the Oil Crisis (1973-1975), and the Double-Dip Recession (1980-1982). Those rates tended to fall during strong economic times — with fast growth and low unemployment — like right after World War II and during the 1990s.
During the depths of the Great Depression, suicide rates in America significantly increased. As the Globe notes:
The largest increase in the US suicide rate occurred during the Great Depression surging from 18 in 100,000 up to 22 in 100,000 …
We’ve previously pointed out that suicide rates have skyrocketed recently:
In a letter to The Lancet medical journal, scientists from Britain, Hong Kong and United States said an analysis of data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicated that while suicide rates increased slowly between 1999 and 2007, the rate of increase more than quadrupled from 2008 to 2010, Reuters reported.
The Great Recession may have been at the root of a great depression that caused suicides to soar among middle-aged Americans, a government report speculates.
The annual suicide rate for adults ages 35 to 64 spiked in the past decade, according to a study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And a shaky economy that nose-dived into the worst financial crisis since the Depression may be the biggest reason why.
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The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report said the annual suicide rate jumped 28.4% from 1999-2010.
It was the biggest increase of any age group, said the CDC, citing “the recent economic downturn” as one of the “possible contributing factors” for the increase.
“Historically, suicide rates tend to correlate with business cycles, with higher rates observed during times of economic hardship,” the report said.
David Stuckler (a senior research leader in sociology at Oxford), and Sanjay Basu (an assistant professor of medicine and an epidemiologist in the Prevention Research Center at Stanford), write in the New York Times:
The correlation between unemployment and suicide has been observed since the 19th century.
The economic downturn that has shaken Europe for the last three years has also swept away the foundations of once-sturdy lives, leading to an alarming spike in suicide rates. Especially in the most fragile nations like Greece, Ireland and Italy, small-business owners and entrepreneurs are increasingly taking their own lives in a phenomenon some European newspapers have started calling “suicide by economic crisis.”
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In Greece, the suicide rate among men increased more than 24 percent from 2007 to 2009, government statistics show. In Ireland during the same period, suicides among men rose more than 16 percent. In Italy, suicides motivated by economic difficulties have increased 52 percent, to 187 in 2010 — the most recent year for which statistics were available — from 123 in 2005.)
Indeed, more Americans are killing themselves today than during the Great Depression. Specifically, there were were 123 million Americans in 1930. The maximum suicide rate during the depths of the Great Depression was 22 out of 100,000 Americans. That means that up to 27,060 Americans killed themselves each year.
Spying without a warrant in America is a crime, a violation of privacy rights protected by the U.S. Constitution. Yet, the government is asking technology companies to commit this crime or be fined for insubordination.
The New York Times is reporting that the Obama administration is “on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people.”
According to the New York Times:
The Obama administration, resolving years of internal debate, is on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.
The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, has argued that the bureau’s ability to carry out court-approved eavesdropping on suspects is “going dark” as communications technology evolves, and since 2010 has pushed for a legal mandate requiring companies like Facebook and Google to build into their instant-messaging and other such systems a capacity to comply with wiretap orders. That proposal, however, bogged down amid concerns by other agencies, like the Commerce Department, about quashing Silicon Valley innovation.
While the F.B.I.’s original proposal would have required Internet communications services to each build in a wiretapping capacity, the revised one, which must now be reviewed by the White House, focuses on fining companies that do not comply with wiretap orders. The difference, officials say, means that start-ups with a small number of users would have fewer worries about wiretapping issues unless the companies became popular enough to come to the Justice Department’s attention.
http://www.democracynow.org – The U.S. military has acknowledged for the first time the number of prisoners on hunger strike at the military prison has topped 100. About a fifth of the hunger strikers are now being forced fed. Lawyers for the prisoners say more than 130 men are taking part in the hunger strike, which began in February. One of the hunger strikers is a Yemeni man named Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel. In a letter published in the New York Times, he wrote: “Denying ourselves food and risking death every day is the choice we have made. I just hope that because of the pain we are suffering, the eyes of the world will once again look to Guantánamo before it is too late.” We speak to attorney Carlos Warner who represents 11 prisoners at Guantánamo. He spoke to one of them on Friday. “Unfortunately, they are held because the president has no political will to end Guantánamo,” Warner says. “The president has the authority to transfer individuals if he believes that it’s in the interest of the United States. He doesn’t have the political will to do so because 166 men in Guantánamo don’t have much pull in the United States. But the average American on the street does not understand that half of these men, 86 of the men, are cleared for release.”
As with many “terrorism” related events since 9/11, the Boston bombing official narrative proves to be a web of lies as important facts are revealed. It turns out that the FBI has lied about its knowledge of the alleged suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, already being presented as guilty not only in the mainstream press but by the President himself.
According to the suspects’ mother, the FBI had been following them for years:
The FBI originally feigned ignorance over the identity of the two Boston bombing suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, as they appealed to an unwitting public to help them “identify” and “find” the suspects. […]
But her biggest suspicion surrounding the case was the constant FBI surveillance she said her family was subjected to over the years. She is surprised that having been so stringent with the entire family, the FBI had no idea the sons were supposedly planning a terrorist act.
She would say of the FBI to Russia Today:
They used to come [to our] home, they used to talk to me…they were telling me that he [the older, 26-y/o Tamerlan] was really an extremist leader and that they were afraid of him. They told me whatever information he is getting, he gets from these extremist sites… they were controlling him, they were controlling his every step…and now they say that this is a terrorist act! Never ever is this true, my sons are innocent!
We were also told that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in an exchange of gunfire after he and his brother had robbed a 7-Eleven:
When the shootout ended, one of the suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, a former boxer, had been shot and fatally wounded. He was wearing explosives, several law enforcement officials said. (Katharine Q. Seelye, William K. Rashbaum and Michael Cooper 2nd Bombing Suspect Caught After Frenzied Hunt Paralyzes Boston, The New York Times, April 19, 2013.)
With a bomb strapped to his chest, one of the Boston Marathon suspects was killed early Friday after he and his accomplice brother robbed a 7-Eleven, shot a police officer to death, carjacked an SUV and hurled explosives in an extraordinary firefight with law enforcement, authorities told NBC News. (Pete Williams, Richard Esposito, Michael Isikoff and Erin McClam, NBC News, One Boston Marathon suspect killed; second suspect, his brother, on loose after firefight, NBC News, April 19, 2013.)
The events surrounding Tamerlan’s death reported by the media are simply not true. It turns out that Tamerlan’ aunt identified him as a “naked, cuffed, clearly alive and well detaineeseen in video aired by CNN”:
Tamerlan Tsarnaev in custody
Was Tamerlan Assassinated?
The Boston Globe confirmed that Marathon Bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was in custody, contradicting earlier reports that he had been killed in crossfire. If he was in custody and is now dead, does that not suggest that he might have been the object of an extrajudicial assassination? The circumstances of his death remain to be clarified.
Moreover, the 7-Eleven robbery was actually unrelated to the Tsarnaev brothers:
There was a 7-Eleven robbery in Cambridge last night, but it had nothing to do with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.
Margaret Chabris, the director of corporate communication at 7- Eleven, says the surveillance video of the crime was not taken at a 7-Eleven and that the suspect that did rob the 7-Eleven does not look like Tamerlan or Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
“The suspect in the photos for that particular 7-Eleven robbery looks nothing like the suspects,” Chabris says. “The police or someone made a mistake. Someone was confused.”
[…] Again, they might be guilty. But as Glenn Greenwald notes:
The overarching principle here should be that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is entitled to a presumption of innocence until he is actually proven guilty. As so many cases have proven – from accused (but exonerated) anthrax attacker Stephen Hatfill to accused (but exonerated) Atlanta Olympic bomber Richard Jewell to dozens if not hundreds of Guantanamo detainees accused of being the “worst of the worst” but who were guilty of nothing – people who appear to be guilty based on government accusations and trials-by-media are often completely innocent. Media-presented evidence is no substitute for due process and an adversarial trial. (Washington’s Blog, Boston Terror Narrative Starts Falling Apart, Global Research, April 23, 2013)
On April 19 Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was arrested and brought to a hospital. According to Reuters, “Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was wounded during at least one of two gun battles with police on Friday, suffering gunshot wounds to his head, neck, legs and hand [...]“. On April 24, the Huffington Post reported:
Two U.S. officials say the surviving suspect in the Boston bombings was unarmed when police captured him hiding inside a boat in a neighborhood back yard.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was unarmed and obviously brutalized by police
We still don’t know what really happened in Boston and who committed the attacks even though the mainstream media report that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has admitted being guilty. What we know for sure is that the official Boston bombing narrative is filled with lies and that since 9/11 and in the context of the fictitious “War on Terror”, Western governments, intelligence agencies and mainstream media have proven to be untrustworthy sources of information on alleged “terrorist attacks” or “foiled terrorist plots”.
Canada’s Complicity in the War on Terror
Three days after Boston was locked down, invaded by a colossal police-military apparatus on a surreal “teenagehunt”, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police made a very timely announcement: they had foiled a terrorist plot targeting a Via Rail passenger train. Or so they say.
In a very absurd press conference where three RCMP officers repeatedly answered questions with “we cannot comment as the investigation is ongoing”, the only information they seemed very eager to disclose was that the suspects “received guidance from Al-Qaeda in Iran”.
RCMP press conference
While the Canadian mainstream media take these RCMP allegations at face value, independent news outlets suspect hidden political motives behind the highly publicized announcement:
Neither the police nor government have given any reason as to why, after allowing the accused to remain at large for months, they were suddenly arrested Monday afternoon and in a very high-profile manner. […]
Speaking Tuesday after Jaser’s arraignment in a Toronto court, his lawyer, John Norris, drew attention to the timing of the police-government announcement that they had uncovered Canada’s first “al-Qaeda-sponsored” terror plot. Said Norris, “The timing of the arrest is a bit of a mystery and certainly I would like to hear the RCMP’s explanation for that. They have been very clear that there is no risk of public safety and it is surprising to say the least that this arrest would be made now, close on the heels of what happened in Boston and timed perfectly with what was happening in the House of Commons yesterday.”
On Friday, the Conservative government announced that it was changing the House of Commons’ agenda, scheduling third and final reading of its “Combating Terrorism Act” (Bill S-7) to begin Monday and conclude this week. Bill S-7 gives the state vast new powers. These include: the right to hold terrorism suspects for 72 hours without charge, to convene “investigative hearings” at which those believed to have information about an imminent terrorist attack are stripped of their right to remain silent, and the power to place restrictions for up to a year on the movements and rights of persons deemed by the state to be terrorist suspects but against whom they have insufficient evidence to lay charges. […]
A nurse opens a door of a room screening people for fever at Ditan Hospital, where a child with a new strain of bird flu is undergoing treatment, in Beijing April 13, 2013.
As new cases of the bird flu H7N9 continue to pop up all over China, officials are getting more and more worried that the virus can spread between humans, or that it will soon develop the ability to spread between humans.
If it develops the ability to transfer easily from one human to another it could easily become a pandemic.
While the virus has been circulating in the bird population, and many types of birds have tested positive for it. According to the World Health Organization, researchers in China haven’t found definite evidence of how it’s transmitted to humans.
What’s the source?
There’s mounting concern about the virus’s actual origins: A number of the confirmed human cases of the new bird flu, H7N9, say they hadn’t interacted with live birds before they got sick. A Chinese official said only about 40% of the patients had tenuous connections to live birds.
Of almost 50,000 samples from poultry markets, only 39 have tested positive for the virus — a very low number according to The New York Times. They also noted that no pigs have tested positive for the virus.
It could come from birds, or from other animals, or some other environmental source, Time reports.
Will it spread between people?
There are even hints that the virus could spread from person to person, but it doesn’t seem to do it all that well yet. According to the New York Times, there are four possible instances of H7N9 spreading between people: Three families in Shanghai and one spread between two boys in Beijing.
It’s difficult to tell if family members were infected from the same original source, or if the virus passed from one to the other, WHO spokesperson Gregory Hartl told The Times.
The latest study, detailed by Reuters indicates that the virus was widespread in the animal populations (not sure which) before it made the leap to humans. The genetic diversity (small changes between individual viruses) looks like a much larger outbreak, the researchers said.
“The diversity we see in these first few samples from China is as great as the diversity we have seen with a large outbreak in the Netherlands several years ago and one in Italy,” study researcher Marion Koopmans, of the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, told Reuters. “This means it (the H7N9 strain in China) has been spreading quite a bit and it’s important to understand where exactly that is going on.”
That’s a bad sign not just because the virus is widespread, but the greater genetic diversity gives the virus more raw materials to work with when mutating. This could make it easier for the virus to gain the ability to pass easily between humans.
A pandemic in the making?
If it can pass between people, it makes a pandemic much more likely, especially if the virus adapts to be transmitted easier. If it becomes more virulent, multiple people could be infected at once in a populated area.
They aren’t the only ones worried about human-to-human transmission of the virus. Jason Koebler of the US News and World Report talked to WHO about the possibility:
Glenn Thomas, a spokesperson for WHO, tells U.S. News that “it’s still too early to say” whether there have been human-to-human transmission, but that the team they’ve sent there will be investigating the possibility.
“There’s no evidence yet of sustained human-to-human transmission, but the team will be looking into this,” he says.
Gene data show China bird flu mutated “under the radar”
By Kate Kelland | Reuters – 8 hrs ago
View PhotoReuters/Reuters – Employees dispose uninfected dead birds at a treatment plant as part of preventive measures against the H7N9 bird flu in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, April 16, 2013. REUTERS/Stringer
By Kate Kelland
LONDON (Reuters) – The new strain of bird flu that has killed 17 people in China has been circulating widely “under the radar” and has acquired significant genetic diversity that makes it more of a threat, scientists said on Friday.
Dutch and Chinese researchers who analyzed genetic data from seven samples of the new H7N9 strain say it has already acquired similar levels of genetic diversity as much larger outbreaks of other H7 strains of flu seen previously in birds.
“The diversity we see in these first few samples from China is as great as the diversity we have seen with a large outbreak in the Netherlands several years ago and one in Italy,” said Marion Koopmans, head of virology at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, who worked on the study as part of a nine-member team.
“This means it (the H7N9 strain in China) has been spreading quite a bit and it’s important to understand where exactly that is going on.”
Its genetic diversity shows the virus has an ability to mutate repeatedly and is likely to continue doing so, raising the risk that it may become transmissible among humans.
Koopmans, whose research was published in the online journal Eurosurveillance, said the circulation would probably have taken place in either birds or mammals, but said exactly which animals were involved was not yet clear.
“Simply the fact that this virus is spreading under the radar – because that is what this data confirms – is of concern,” she told Reuters in a telephone interview.
The H7N9 virus is so far known to have infected 87 people in China, killing 17 of them. Health officials raised further questions on Friday about the source of the new strain after data indicated that more than half of patients had had no contact with poultry.
U.S. Hospitals Told to Be on Lookout for H7N9 Bird Flu
By Anna Edney – Apr 19, 2013 10:29 AM CT
Hospitals in U.S. Told by CDC to Be on Lookout for H7N9 Bird Flu
ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images
Doctors wearing protective clothing work at the First Affiliated Hospital of College of Medicine of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China. China has recorded 92 human infections of the H7N9 strain of bird flu, with 17 of the cases fatal, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from national and provincial governments and the World Health Organization.
U.S. hospitals are being urged to head off a spread of the new H7N9 avian influenza by looking out for people exhibiting flu-like symptoms who have traveled to China or had contact with someone who has the illness.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held a conference call with health-care professionals yesterday to review procedures for treating bird-flu patients and controlling infections, Erin Burns, an agency spokeswoman, said in an e- mail. The Atlanta-based agency today issued interim guidance on the use of antiviral agents to treat H7N9 infections.
Issuing the guidance and holding the clinician calls “would be considered routine preparedness measures for an outbreak with pandemic potential,” Burns said.
China has recorded 92 human infections of the H7N9 strain of bird flu, with 17 of the cases fatal, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from national and provincial governments and the World Health Organization. The source of the infection hasn’t been identified and there is no evidence of person-to- person transmission, with many of the cases involving human contact with poultry, according to the CDC’s website.
There haven’t been any cases reported in the U.S. and sustained person-to-person spread is needed for a pandemic to occur. The H7N9 virus is novel and has the potential to cause a pandemic if it were to change and spread through human-to-human contact, CDC said.
UM coach “thought it was odd” bomb sniffing dogs were at start and finish lines
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
April 15, 2013
An eyewitness to the two explosions at the Boston Marathon today said that a “drill” was repeatedly announced before the bombs exploded and that he “thought it was odd” bomb sniffing dogs were in place before the blast.
Image: Twitter
University of Mobile’s Cross Country Coach Ali Stevenson told Local 15 News, “They kept making announcements on the loud speaker that it was just a drill and there was nothing to worry about. “It seemed like there was some sort of threat, but they kept telling us it was just a drill.”
The news station also reports that Stevenson “thought it was odd there were bomb sniffing dogs at the start and finish lines.”
Stevenson then describes hearing the explosions as he ran away from the scene, having just completed the marathon.
If this report is accurate, it clearly suggests there could have been some degree of prior knowledge of the bombing, which killed two people and injured at least 23.
The fact that the explosions were preceded and overlapped by a”drill” of an almost identical nature mirrors other major terror attacks, such as the 7/7 bombings in London.
It is important to emphasize that the New York Times recently reported that most of the recent domestic terror plots in the United States “were facilitated by the F.B.I.,” suggesting that today’s incident in Boston may have been part of such an operation.
It remains to be seen how the media and the Obama administration will exploit this incident depending who gets the blame, but Rahm Emanuel’s “never let a serious crisis go to waste” advisory is sure to be in play.
University of Mobile’s Cross Country Coach, who was near the finish line of the Boston Marathon when a series of explosions went off, said he thought it was odd there were bomb sniffing dogs at the start and finish lines.
“They kept making announcements to the participants do not worry, it’s just a training exercise,” Coach Ali Stevenson told Local 15.
(Shades of 9/11 when workers in the South Tower were told to go back into their offices. That the fire was under control.)
Stevenson said he saw law enforcement spotters on the roofs at the start of the race. He’s been in plenty of marathons in Chicago, D.C., Chicago, London and other major metropolitan areas but has never seen that level of security before.
“Evidently, I don’t believe they were just having a training exercise,” Stevenson said. “I think they must have had some sort of threat or suspicion called in.”
University of Mobile’s Cross Country Coach, who was near the finish line of the Boston Marathon when a series of explosions went off, said he thought it was odd there were bomb sniffing dogs at the start and finish lines.
University of Mobile’s Cross Country Coach, who was near the finish line of the Boston Marathon when a series of explosions went off, said he thought it was odd there were bomb sniffing dogs at the start and finish lines.
“They kept making announcements to the participants do not worry, it’s just a training exercise,” Coach Ali Stevenson told Local 15.
Stevenson said he saw law enforcement spotters on the roofs at the start of the race. He’s been in plenty of marathons in Chicago, D.C., Chicago, London and other major metropolitan areas but has never seen that level of security before.
“Evidently, I don’t believe they were just having a training exercise,” Stevenson said. “I think they must have had some sort of threat or suspicion called in.”
Stevenson had just finished the marathon before the explosions. Stevenson said his wife had been sitting in one of the seating sections where an explosion went off, but thankfully she left her seat and was walking to meet up with him.
“We are just so thankful right now,” Stevenson said.
Note:CNN hack Wolf Blitzer has speculated live on air that an anti-tax group was behind the attack.
Two explosions have rocked the Boston Marathon, injuring numerous people and causing at least 12 deaths.
The official Boston Marathon website has confirmed, through their official Facebook, that two bombs were detonated near the finish line.
There were two bombs that exploded near the finish line in today’s Boston Marathon. We are working with law enforcement to understand what exactly has happened.
More updates are rolling in, see below:
A report from the Chicago Tribune revealed that police have confirmed that two explosions hit near the end of the marathon.
Pictures from the scene showed blood stains on the ground and several people knocked down. Massachusetts General Hospital was treating four victims of the explosion in its emergency room but information about their condition was not immediately available, a spokeswoman said.
To make matters worse, Fox News is reporting that at least 10 injuries include amputations:
At least three people are dead and dozens injured – including up to 10 with amputated limbs – after two explosions rocked the area near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
Reports of deaths and a possible third bomb are coming in by the minute. Stay tuned as more information becomes available.
Only hours after two bombs were detonated near the finish line of a Boston marathon, evidence is beginning to emerge suggesting that the act may have been a false flag attack.
While reports continue to emerge from the scene, a number of facts point toward the typical setup used to devise, control, and execute such an attack as took place around the 9/11, 7/7, and OKC bombings as well as the Aurora and Sandy Hook shootings.
One of the hallmark signals of a false flag attack, as Webster Tarpley has expertly demonstrated in his book, 9/11 Synthetic Terror, is the use of drills acting as a cover for sinister plans and mechanizations within the halls of the shadow government itself which ultimately manifest as false flag terror attacks. Much like the aforementioned attacks, the Boston Bombing also carried the trademark “coincidence” of a drill scheduled to take place at almost exactly the same time that the bombs were being detonated at the marathon.
For instance, earlier in the morning of April 15, 2013, the Boston Globe tweeted “Officials: There will be a controlled explosion opposite the library within one minute as part of bomb squad activities.”
In addition, it was reported by Business Insider in the article “2 More Explosive Devices Found At Boston Marathon,”[1] that a police scanner “said police were going to do a third, controlled explosion on the 600 Block of Boylston Street.”
Yet, despite the fact that the police had scheduled a highly “coincidental” explosion at the JFK Library, much of the mainstream reports regarding the device have presented it as another part of the Boston Bombing itself.
In fact, the New York Post reported almost the polar opposite of the Boston Globe in regards to the second device. It said, “Police confirmed a third explosion at JFK Library in Boston. Boston fire officials confirmed during a press conference that the third explosion was linked to the ones that occurred at the Marathon. There were no injuries reported from the third bombing.”
Andrew Katz of TIME tweeted that “police were investigating reports of bombs in other parts of the city,” and “Citing a police scanner, Katz tweeted that there was an ‘incendiary device’ possible at JFK Library as well as ‘another device’ in front of Boston’s luxury Mandarin Hotel.”
Business Insider also reported that, around 3 p.m., there was a fire inside the JFK Library but states that it was not related to the “terrorist bombings.” This, as I mentioned, is in direct contradiction to the later reports that the “fire” was actually an explosion related to the terror bombing.
Thus, we have a device planted inside the library by the police and confirmation that an explosion at the library was connected to the Boston Bombing. This fact alone should be enough to raise questions regarding the individuals responsible for the bombing. If the police had planted a device inside the Library and the explosion was related to the Boston Bombing, should there not be an immediate investigation of the police?
It should also be noted that Chris Faraone of the Boston Phoenix also tweeted that a police officer near the finish line stated, “There are secondary devices that have been found and are unexploded.”
Also interesting, however, is the fact that the University of Mobile’s Cross Country Coach, Ali Stevenson, stated that bomb sniffing dogs were present at both the start and finish lines.
In late September 2011, AFP reported that a man was charged with “planning to fly explosive-packed, remote controlled airplanes into the Pentagon and the Capitol in Washington.” In its report, “US man charged with Pentagon bomb plot,” AFP stated (emphasis added):
During the alleged plot, undercover FBI agents posed as accomplices who supplied Ferdaus with one remote-controlled plane, C4 explosives, and small arms that he allegedly envisioned using in a simultaneous ground assault in Washington.
However, ”the public was never in danger from the explosive devices, which were controlled by undercover FBI employees,” the FBI said.
Ferdaus was arrested in Framingham, near Boston, immediately after putting the newly delivered weapons into a storage container, the FBI said.
Authorities described Ferdaus as a physics graduate from Northeastern University who followed al-Qaeda and was committed to ”violent jihad” since early last year.
In November 2010, a similar “plot” was engineered, then “disrupted,” also by the FBI – this time in Portland, Oregon.
The so-called “Christmas Tree Bomber” attempted to remote detonate a van he believed was filled with explosives, provided by the FBI, before being arrested during a Christmas tree lighting ceremony at Pioneer Courthouse Square. The FBI’s official statement regarding the incident revealed that FBI agents had handled, even detonated live explosives with the entrapped suspect at Lincoln County Park in the lead up to the final failed bombing.
The FBI’s official statement titled, “Oregon Resident Arrested in Plot to Bomb Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony in Portland,” released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office on November 26, 2010 stated (emphasis added):
According to the affidavit, on November 4, 2010, Mohamud and the undercover FBI operatives traveled to a remote location in Lincoln County, Ore., where they detonated a bomb concealed in a backpack as a trial run for the upcoming attack. Afterwards, on the drive back to Corvallis, undercover FBI operatives questioned Mohamud as to whether he was capable of looking at the bodies of those who would be killed in the upcoming attack in Portland. According to the affidavit, Mohamud responded, “I want whoever is attending that event to leave, to leave either dead or injured.”
Upon returning to Corvallis that same day, the affidavit alleges that Mohamud recorded a video of himself with the undercover FBI operatives in which he read a written statement that offered a rationale for his bomb attack. On Nov. 18, 2010, undercover FBI operatives picked up Mohamud to travel to Portland in order to finalize the details of the attack.
Earlier this evening, Mohamud was arrested after he attempted to remotely detonate what he believed to be explosives in a van that was parked near the Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, the affidavit alleges.
Another similar operation was carried out by the FBI in February 2012, where yet another otherwise incapable patsy was provided with live explosives in the lead up to what was ultimately a failed suicide bombing at the US Capitol. USA Today reported in their article, “FBI foils alleged suicide bomb attack on U.S. Capitol,” that (emphasis added):
According to a counterterrorism official, El Khalifi “expressed interest in killing at least 30 people and considered targeting a building in Alexandria and a restaurant, synagogue and a place where military personnel gather in Washington before he settled on the Capitol after canvassing that area a couple of times,” the Associated Press writes. During the year-long investigation, El Khalifi detonated explosives at a quarry in the capital region with undercover operatives. He is not believed to be affiliated with al-Qaeda, officials said.
Thousands of people last week discovered that Amazon had quietly removed electronic copies of George Orwell’s 1984 from their Kindle e-book readers. In the process, Amazon revealed how easy censorship will be in the Kindle age.
In this case, the mass e-book removals were motivated by copyright . A company called MobileReference, who did not own the copyrights to the books 1984 and Animal Farm, uploaded both books to the Kindle store and started selling them. When the rights owner heard about this, they contacted Amazon and asked that the e-books be removed. And Amazon decided to erase them not just from the store, but from all the Kindles where they’d been downloaded. Amazon operators used the Kindle wireless network, called WhisperNet, to quietly delete the books from people’s devices and refund them the money they’d paid.
An uproar followed, with outraged customers pointing out the irony that Amazon was deleting copies of a novel about a fascist media state that constantly alters history by changing digital records of what has happened. Amazon’s action flies in the face of what people expect when they purchase a book. Under the “right of first sale” in the U.S., people can do whatever they like with a book after purchasing it, including giving it to a friend or reselling it. There is no option for a bookseller to take that book back once it’s sold.
Amazon’s published terms of service agreement for the Kindle does not appear to give the company the right to delete purchases after they have been made. It says Amazon grants customers the right to keep a “permanent copy of the applicable digital content.”
But this isn’t the first time there has been a problem with secret deletings. Stone adds:
About 300 million tons of plastic are produced each year. In the US alone, about 30+ million tons of plastic waste is dumped into the solid waste system, including various plastic containers, bags and other types of packaging, with only about 10% being recycled.
Plastic, which was once regarded as convenient and versatile, has actually become one of the biggest environmental problems of our time. Over the last 50 years, we’ve increased the amount of plastic waste 12 fold. Typically plastics are made by using non-renewable resources, and most plastics are non-biodegadable, which means they will be around for centuries. The ingredients used to make plastics, such as petrochemical bisphenol A (BPA) and bisphenol S (BPS), have been linked to a wide range of serious adverse health effects.
“Plastic pollution is a major global phenomenon that has crept up on us over the decades, and it really requires a global and comprehensive solution that includes systemic rethinks about usage and production.” – Doug Woodring, Plastic Disclosure Project (Source: New York Times)
Plastic bags are another concerning issue. Over 1 trillion plastic bags are produced in the world each year. We use them for everything – from carrying groceries, to packing beauty products in our luggage, to storing foods in our refrigerator, and they have made our life much more convenient. Yet, the price for this convenience is astounding. The infographic below, produced by Arte IDEAS, will give you an idea of the impact plastic bags have on the environment:
The impact of plastic has been most detrimental to the world’s waterways. Environmental organizations estimate that about 7 million tons of plastic end up in the seas and oceans each year, polluting beaches even on islands, killing off precious and rare native species.
…the E.U. commissioner for maritime affairs and fisheries, Maria Damanaki, has said that pollution in the Mediterranean Sea has reached “alarming proportions.” (Source: New York Times)
One of the most harrowing examples the devastation already to the Midway Islands, home of the majestic albatross and one of the most remotest places on earth. 2000 miles from another continent, this little oasis is ground zero for the plastic apocalypse and this once pristine group of islands is now a frightening and gruesomely real sign of how plastics choke the life out of an eco-system.
Vice President Joe Biden warned Wednesday that the upcoming Senate vote was only the beginning of their gun control fight, a fight that concerns many who believe it may actually be aimed at eventually disarming millions of law-abiding citizens.
The warning, made during a conference call organized by gun-grabbing, globalist-backed Mayors Against Illegal Guns, is a stark reminder that, although the assault weapons ban has so far failed, the fight for the 2nd Amendment is far from over.
“That doesn’t mean this is the end of the process. This is the beginning of the process,” Biden was quoted as saying in a report by the Associated Press.
Despite overwhelming anger towards the planned banning of hundreds of weapons and the outright attack on guns in general, Biden went on to claim that they are simply following what the American people want.
“The American people are way ahead of their political leaders and we, the president and I and the mayors, intend to stay current with the American people.”
“We believe that weapons of war have no place on our streets,” Biden said.
Sadly, this tactic is being used throughout the corporate media with dozens of cable news pundits claiming over and over again that Americans want gun control, while using rigged polls taken by corporate companies to back their alarmist propaganda.
Meanwhile, President Obama appeared alongside mothers of gun victims on Thursday to once again use the horrific death of children as a backdrop to push the gun control agenda.
Described as an, “impassioned plea,” by the New York Times, Obama took to the podium, complete with perfectly angled sad mothers in the background who had just shared stories about their dead children, to demand a continued push for gun control, essentially indicating that if you support the mothers behind him then you will support the numerous gun control laws currently being put forward in Congress.
“Less than 100 days ago that happened, and the entire country was shocked and the entire country pledged we would do something about it and this time would be different,” Obama said.
“Shame on us if we’ve forgotten. I haven’t forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten.”
{….}
“The notion that two months or three months after something as horrific as what happened in Newtown happens and we’ve moved on to other things?” “That’s not who we are. That’s not who we are. And I want to make sure every American is listening today.”
“We need everybody to remember how we felt 100 days ago and make sure that what we said at that time wasn’t just a bunch of platitudes, that we meant it.”
Obama then went on to use numerous fallacies in a psychological manipulation attempt, including the use of rigged statistics to put forth the idea that only a few crazies stand against his political agenda.
Obama to follow in footsteps of Hitler, Stalin with ‘executive order’ disarmament of the American people
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) It’s official. President Obama is going to march America down the dark halls of history by following in the footsteps of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and all the other gun-grabbing madmen who have exploited fear to achieve the total concentration of power in the hands of dictatorial government.
America is headed into civil war.
Vice President Joe Biden said today that disarming the American people and setting them up for government genocide is “acting responsibly.”
“The president is going to act,” said Biden, giving some comments to the press before a meeting with victims of gun violence. “There are executives orders, there’s executive action that can be taken. We haven’t decided what that is yet. But we’re compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and the rest of the cabinet members as well as legislative action that we believe is required.” Biden said that this is a moral issue and that “it’s critically important that we act.”
Biden talked also about taking responsible action. “As the president said, if you’re actions result in only saving one life, they’re worth taking. But I’m convinced we can affect the well-being of millions of Americans and take thousands of people out of harm’s way if we act responsibly.”
Biden is the guy who once promised, “Obama’s not getting my Beretta [shotgun].” Obama also made a campaign promise that he would never come after your guns. Now they’re both charging forward with a plot to completely disarm all the legal gun owners across America.
This is the moment when America either falls to tyrants or rises to resist it.
Matt Drudge sees what’s coming. DrudgeReport.com posted this headline earlier this morning, complete with pictures of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin:
Gun grabbers actually want your guns so they can murder you with them
The real agenda of gun grabbers has now become crystal clear: They want to kill gun owners and anyone who doesn’t bow down to the Hitlerian madness of the Obama administration.
Last night on the Piers Morgan show on CNN, guests openly threatened Alex Jones’ children with being killed, and then one guest openly suggested that Piers Morgan shoot Alex Jones with an AR-15 — followed by laughter from the other guests on the show. It is a felony crime to threaten to murder a person, yet none of these guests who appeared on Piers Morgan have been arrested.
This is nothing short of a death threat aired on national television. This is what the gun grabbers really want: to TAKE your guns so they can SHOOT you with them.
It’s all coming out. This is their true agenda: mass murder and / or genocide. Those who support gun disarmament of the American people are supporting mass murder: Michael Moore, Piers Morgan, Biden, Obama, Cuomo… they are all proponents of mass murder. They are the very same kind of people who once supported Hitler and Stalin, and now they’re creating a new Hitler in Barack Obama, the would-be dictator who is thrusting America straight into a new civil war.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other gun control advocates insisted Wednesday that both momentum and public opinion are on their side, but recent polling shows Americans turning against stricter laws as more time elapses since the Newtown shootings.
Mr. Biden rallied gun control advocates ahead of a “day of action” organized by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, telling supporters that bans on so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are “just the beginning.”
“Let me say this as clearly as I can: this is just the beginning,” he said on a conference call organized by the group, which is co-chaired by New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. “We believe that weapons of war have no place on our streets. That’s the message that retired admirals and generals have spoken to us about. The comment one of them used was if you want to learn how to use a semiautomatic weapon, join the United States military. But these are weapons of war.”
President Obama is also scheduled to host mothers, victims of gun violence, law enforcement officials and others at an event at the White House on Thursday, and Brina Milikowski of MAIG said the group has more than 140 events planned in at least 29 states.
“The most important thing we can do in the lead-up to the vote in Congress in a couple weeks is to make our voices heard,” Ms. Milikowski said. “We know that Congress is paying attention — not just to the polls and to the news, but also to grass-roots events and mobile initiatives showing overwhelming support among Americans for common-sense public safety measures.”
But despite the proclamations, White House spokesman Josh Earnest struck a much more cautious tone Wednesday, saying the mere fact that the Senate will be voting on an assault weapons ban is a step in the right direction.
“I think because of all the talk of the president and because of his aggressive advocacy of this issue, there will be a vote in the United States Senate on whether or not military-style assault weapons will be banned from the streets of this country,” Mr. Earnest said. “I think that is — that represents progress.”
Though surveys show that a sizable majority of Americans continue to support individual measures like universal background checks, a new CBS News poll shows that only 47 percent of Americans support stricter gun control laws, compared to a high of 57 percent right after the December shootings in Connecticut. Further, a CNN poll from last week showed 43 percent of Americans support “major restrictions” or a complete ban on guns — down from 52 percent in December.
“The proverb, ‘What you don’t know can’t hurt you”, originated in 1576 as, ‘So long as I know it not, it hurteth mee not.’ But the opposite is true. Unpleasant hidden truths do the most harm. The best way to fight corruption is to expose it. Think of the World Bank as ENRON.” … Karen Hudes
When, thanks to Mark Novitsky, a federal whistleblower, I learned that Karen Hudes, who earned her J.D. at Yale, our most distinguished School of Law, and an M.Phil. in economics at the University of Amsterdam, which is also a formidable institution, had been removed from her position as Senior Counsel for the World Bank because of her efforts to expose corruption and reaffirm the rule of law in the form of appropriate standards of accounting, I was dumbfounded.
What initially appear to be obscure issues of international finance, moreover, have the potential to sever ties between us and our NATO allies and weaken the national security of the United States. The stakes involved are therefore extremely high for every American citizen.
During the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings last October, with her encouragement, the Development Committee informed President Jim Yong Kim of the need for “a more open, transparent and accountable World Bank Group.” The reasons that motivated that request included the following series of disturbing developments:
The World Bank has disregarded the Joint Economic Committee’s 2005 inquiry into the World Bank’s “corporate governance irregularities” and “accounting problems”;
The World Bank has failed to follow the Joint Economic Committee’s advice that professional financial and accounting employees be given independent access to the World Bank’s Board and its Audit Committee;
The World Bank has failed to protect Hudes against retaliation for challenges of illegality or other misconduct through external arbitration pursuant to the 2005 Lugar-Leahy amendment, which could threaten its mission;
The World Bank has refused to comply with the Government Accountability Office inquiry into corruption requested by Senators Lugar, Leahy and Bayh for more than three years;
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner misrepresented progress on World Bank reform in his 11/21/12 report to the Appropriations Committees pursuant to § 7082 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012.
LIMASSOL, CYPRUS — It is not just about rich Russians and Cypriot retirees. Also vitally at stake in this island country’s banking crisis is Cyprus’s credibility as a place for international companies to continue doing business.
Take Avid Life Media, the Canadian-owned operator of some of the world’s biggest online dating sites. Only a few weeks ago it set up an office here as a base for its international operations, attracted to Cyprus — as hundreds of other foreign businesses have been — because of its reputation for financial stability, a low corporate tax rate, a friendly banking environment and most of all, a strong rule of law.
Now imagine that was the case for the most important bank of all, which affects the world’s economy. Imagine that bank accounts were being looted world-wide and you will begin to appreciate the dimensions of the problem.
When I discovered that Karen Hudes’ reinstatement, which was being supported by the finance ministers of the nations of the world, was being blocked by its recently appointed president, Jim Yong Kim, who was formerly President of Dartmouth, I was further astonished, because I had encountered Kim before. He had supported the publication for an article by a member of the computer science faculty, Hany Farid, who claimed that the backyard photographs used to convict Lee Harvey Oswald in the public mind were authentic, which was profoundly disturbing.
Hany Farid and “the backyard photographs”
That is a claim that others had long since proven false. Jack White, the legendary JFK photo analyst, had testified to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) when it had reinvestigated the deaths of JFK and of MLK in 1976-77 and had pointed out a dozen features that disqualify them. Oswald himself had told Capt. Will Fritz, the Dallas Homicide detective who interrogated him, that the photo he was shown had his face pasted on someone else’s body. Like other claims Oswald made at the time, subsequent research has proven that he was right.
The chin is not Lee Oswald’s chin, which was somewhat pointed, but a block chin; there is an insert line between the chin and his lower lip; and the finger tips of his right hand are cut off, for example. Even more interestingly, he realized that the two communist newspapers that Oswald was holding–The Militant and The Worker–had known dimensions and could serve as an internal rule to determine the height of the person who was holding them. Using that method, he was able to establish that he was about 5’6″ tall, when Oswald was about 5’10″–which meant that either someone who was too short to be Oswald had posed for the photos or that they had been introduced too large when they were faked. Either way, they could not possibly be authentic.
When I discovered that Hany Farid, who has a lab funded by the FBI, had published the claim that he had proven them to be authentic by showing that it was possible to replicate the shadow cast by the nose in one of them, I knew he was perpetrating a fraud on the public, because (1) there are four poses taken in different positions at different times, where it would have been virtually impossible for the nose shadow to remain constant from one to another; and (2) there are many other indications of fakery besides the shadow cast by the nose that prove fakery, where even if he had been right about the nose shadow, his conclusion of authenticity would have been wrong. He was violating a basic precept of science by not basing his reasoning upon all the available relevant evidence
So I wrote to President Kim to explain why Darmouth was committing a blunder in supporting Hany Farid’s claim, which I substantiated with multiple lines of proof. Dartmouth stood pat, however, and never took steps to correct the record, even though it was a matter of immense public interest and concern. I published an article about my experience with Kim in an article co-authored with Jim Marrs in OpEdNews, “The Dartmouth JFK-Photo Fiasco” (20 November 2009) and followed up by publishing my correspondence in “Blowing the Whistle on Dartmouth: Hany Farid in the nation’s service” (26 January 2010), which I regarded as a professional obligation.
It now appears to me that Kim may have been rewarded for his contribution to the public deception about the death of JFK by being appointed to the World Bank, just as Paul Wolfowitz appears to have been appointed by George W. Bush for his contributions to 9/11 and the “war on terror”. I have long believed that, in Washington, D.C., the bigger the liar, the further you go. I now believe that, when it comes to acting contrary to the public interest, the presidency of the World Bank may be another sign of compliance with corruption, as the experiences of Karen Hudes reflects. I regard us as kindred spirits insofar as “whistle blowing” seems to be coursing through our veins.
Credit Ratings, NATO and Democracy: Too Big for Transparency?
by Karen Hudes
The World Bank and its next door neighbor, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), stand at the crossroads of the international financial system. Both organizations are referred to as the “Bretton Woods” institutions, named for the site in New Hampshire where the founding conference of 44 countries was held in 1944. The Bretton Woods institutions were created to prevent the “beggar thy neighbor” policies responsible for World Wars I and II.
The World Bank’s membership has now grown to 188 countries. The World Bank and IMF share a Board of Governors comprising the Ministers of Finance of member countries. They each have resident Boards of 24 Directors; seven Directors are appointed by 7 countries with the largest economies and 17 Directors are appointed by groups or “constituencies” of the remaining member countries.
Because of its crucial role at the heart of the world’s financial system, problems at the World Bank are going to have consequences for the world’s financial system. I know “up close and personal” because I served as Senior Counsel for the World Bank for 21 years. My qualifications included a J.D. from Yale Law School and M.Phil. in economics from the University of Amsterdam. I know the institution inside and out. And I have been blowing the whistle on improper practices at the World Bank that threaten the world’s fiscal integrity.
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Reporting Corruption up the Chain of Command
I worked in the Legal Department of the World Bank from 1986-2007. But in 2007, I was fired in retaliation for reporting corruption at the Bretton Woods institutions up the chain of command at the World Bank, through the US Treasury Department, and to the US Congress. My report was quite specific, namely: that the World Bank is out of compliance with the law, because its financial statements to the holders of its $135 billion in bonds, which are denominated in 52 currencies, are not in accord with Generally Acceptable Accounting Principles and Auditing Standards.
I never imagined how intractable the corruption at the World Bank was. A reliable stakeholder analysis, based on game theory modeling, shows that failure to adhere to the rule of law by the World Bank will bring about a world-wide currency war that will make what we lived through in 2008 pale by comparison. The stakeholder analysis began predicting success in bringing the World Bank into compliance after the European Parliament invited me to testify on May 25, 2011. My testimony included a chronology of the cover-up. President Kim has already prompted Germany to repatriate the equivalent of $36 billion in gold. As I told Sen. Harry Reid in 2008, “the greatest security risk to the US is in alienating its partners by acting as a hegemon”.
The Failure of Press Coverage
One reason it is so difficult to end the corrupt regime at the World Bank is because there has been virtually no press coverage. It is possible to conclude from this that democracy in the United States has been weakened by the reduction in the number of corporations who own the bulk of US media outlets (from 50 to 5 in less than twenty years.) Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, The Goldman Sachs Group along with a few others use interlocking corporate ownership to control 40 percent of total wealth and 60 percent of global revenues.
This concentration of power rests on disproportionate corporate investments of one percent of all corporations. Theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, using natural systems mathematical modeling and comprehensive data on the actual corporate ownership of 43,000 transnational corporations, discovered this concentration of power. When questions are raised about “who controls the world”, this one percent looks like a very promising candidate. The crux of the matter is that the corporations control the mass media and, through the mass media, control the politicians.
Although there have been occasional articles about these issues, where some of my commentaries about them have appeared in print, for the most part, interest in these questions from the public has been few and far between, where recent interviews with Deanna Spingola and with Jim Fetzer, who are alternative media radio hosts, have been the exception. Here are some links to our recent interviews:
“Spingola Speaks” with Karen Hudes, 22 January 2013, HOUR 1
“Spingola Speaks” with Karen Hudes, 22 January 2013, HOUR 2,
“The Real Deal” with Karen Hudes, 6 March 2013, 1.5 HOURS,
“The Real Deal” with Karen Hudes, 20 March 2013, .5 HOUR,
[NOTE: Both interviews are followed by discussion with Mark Novitzky.]
The Early Years of the World Bank
The longest-serving General Counsel of the World Bank, Aaron Broches, helped to write the charters of the World Bank and IMF at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944. According to Broches, corruption intensified during former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s presidency of the World Bank from 1968-81. In 2007, the Board fired another president from the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz, after Wolfowitz gave a 35% salary increase to his girlfriend at the World Bank, Shaha Riza.
The Europeans asked for an inquiry. The investigation headed by Paul Volcker, unfortunately, did not address the corruption. The Europeans reacted by calling for an end to the 66 years’ “Gentlemen’s Agreement” that the US appoints the President of the World Bank and the Europeans appoint the Managing Director of the IMF. Had the press reported my warnings to the authorities about the corruption, the US could have avoided substantial tarnish to its reputation and the loss of the Gentlemen’s Agreement.
My efforts to expose and correct the failure of the World Bank to adhere to standard accounting procedures has been enduring. In 2005, for example, the Dutch Government asked the Audit Committee to end a campaign of retaliation against me for reporting to the Executive Board about an inaccurate evaluation on a failed Banking Sector project in the Philippines. Then Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations have written three letters to the World Bank on my behalf, asking for an end to the ongoing cover-up.
My Efforts to Expose Corruption
In 2007, I also met with Chris Armstrong in Senate Finance, Jayme Roth in Senator Bayh’s office, and Nicole Willet in Senator Clinton’s office. Senators Lugar, Leahy and Bayh began asking GAO to investigate the World Bank in 2008, and the Audit Committee is requiring an independent audit of the World Bank’s internal controls. The Audit Committee also referred my case to the Bank’s Institutional Integrity Department (INT). INT, which reports to the President of the World Bank, is used to intimidate staff. Paul Volcker ignored INT’s sinister role and simply recommended that whistleblower retaliation cases should be removed from INT’s mandate.
I met with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Dutch Government on 24 September 2007. The Dutch are not happy with the Volcker Report and the ongoing cover-up. Moreover, previous Dutch Executive Directors, Herman Wijffels and Ad Melkert, disclosed that ‘third parties’ attempted to intimidate them and other members of the World Bank’s Board through shocking invasions of their private lives. The US violation of the safe-conduct normally accorded to diplomats is an egregious breach of honor. Article VII, Section 8 of the World Bank’s Articles provides immunities to Executive Directors, officers and staff.
Ben Heineman (who was a member of the Volcker Panel) spoke at the Yale Law School on October 5, 2007. On October 8, 2007, at the suggestion of minority staff on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I contacted Kenneth Peel at Treasury, to encourage the Bush Administration to end the cover-up on the Philippines Banking Sector Reform Loan and restore the rule of law to the Bank. But the upshot of my efforts to correct improper procedures was to have me removed from my position as Senior Counsel, which has had an intimidating effect.
