1/28/08 News Radar

Israeli towns and communities within rocket and missile range of the Gaza Strip were on tense alert after the Israeli air force struck the Philadekphi corridor border tunnels before dawn Wednesday, Jan. 28. Punishment was promised Hamas after a large roadside bomb blew up an Israel border patrol jeep outside Gaza early Tuesday, killing one Israel soldier and injuring three, one seriously, one week into the Gaza ceasefire.

Several smuggling tunnels caved in under the aerial bombardment. This may not be the end of Israel's response. Barack Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell is due in Jerusalem later Wednesday for his first visit. If Hamas goes back to firing rockets, he will land in the middle of another Gaza war.
http://www.debka.com/index1.php

A little-discussed provision in President Obama's economic stimulus plan would demand that every American submit to a government program for electronic medical records
without a choice to opt out, and it has privacy advocates more than a little alarmed.

Patients might be alarmed, too, privacy advocates said, if they realized information such as documentation on abortions, mental health problems, impotence, being labeled as a non-compliant patient, lawsuits against doctors and sexual problems could be shared electronically with, perhaps, millions of people.
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=87322

A lawyer
whose case challenging Barack Obama's eligibility to occupy the Oval Office was denied a hearing in the U.S. Supreme Court says she will demand records of a meeting between the justices and the president.

California lawyer Orly Taitz, who has several cases pending over the issue of Obama's status as a "natural born" citizen, told WND she will take action soon.

Her case was the most recent on which the Supreme Court held a "conference," an off-the-record discussion at which justices discuss whether to take a case. Taitz told WND the justices decided Jan. 23 to deny her case a hearing on its merits.

The result was the same for previous cases brought by Philip Berg, whose information is on his ObamaCrimes.com website, as well as Cort Wrotnowski.

Like Berg's cases, Taitz said hers now reverts to the lower court, where it was pending when her emergency appeals were submitted to the Supreme Court.

But of the Supreme Court's actions now may become the subject of further questions, because Obama visited with the justices in their private chambers in a meeting closed to the public just before his inauguration. Taitz said a defendant in a legal action meeting with the judges who are deciding the case without have a representative from the other side is unprecedented – and unacceptable.

"I will file a motion to the chief justice to compel the records of this private meeting, that was held only a few days before my case was supposed to be heard," Taitz said in a posting on her website.

"I would like to get information about what was discussed," she told WND in an interview. "It's unheard of for the Supreme Court to meet with [one] party when a case is pending."
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=87270

The state of California has run out of money.

Facing a $42 billion budget deficit, State Controller John Chiang told the Sacramento Bee he has already borrowed $21.5 billion to try to cover the state's checks, but by Feb. 1, there will be no more options left but to simply stop paying some of the bills – including tax refunds, welfare checks, student grants and other payments owned to California citizens.

"It pains me to pull this trigger," Chiang said at a news conference held in his office. "But it is an action that is critically necessary."

Federal law requires that many school and healthcare programs – a total of about $6.6 billion in California – must be paid, the Los Angeles Times reports, so Chiang has announced an expected payment freeze on $3.7 billion worth of the state's bills, most of it refunds owed to taxpayers.

But even with the freeze beginning next week, the Times reports, California will still fall $346 million short for the month of February, forcing Chiang to consider something only done once since the Great Depression: issuing IOUs.

Formally called "registered warrants," the state's IOUs consist of little more than a piece of paper that says the state owes a payee money, plus interest, to be paid at some point in the future.

The last time California issued registered warrants was in 1992, during two-month budget battle between then-Gov. Pete Wilson and the state's legislators. But after the state issued almost $4 billion worth of IOUs, many banks stopped accepting them as deposits, claiming the five percent interest didn't pay for the hassle of processing them.

The Times reports that state officials have already designed an IOU template for February and begun negotiating with banks to avoid a repeat of 1992's problems.
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=87175

California, like most, if not all, of the big banks, is insolvent.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Financial documents filed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton show that her husband earned nearly $6 million in speaking fees last year, nearly all of it from foreign companies.

The documents obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press indicate that $5 million of the former president's reported $5.7 million in 2008 honoraria came from foreign sources. They included Kuwait's National Bank, a Hong Kong-based company, and other firms and groups in Canada, Germany, India, Malaysia, Mexico and Portugal.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D95VK2BG0&show_article=1

Interesting isn't it. Wonder what he speaks about? Wouldn't happen to be anything along the lines of global agendas and intelligence interest would it?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - While many U.S. cities worry that their economies are deteriorating to the level of the 1930s Great Depression, New York City fears reliving a more recent decade that features strongly in city lore.

The 1970s were a low point in city history as a fiscal crisis almost pushed it into bankruptcy, crime rates soared, and homeless people crowded sidewalks as public services crumbled.

Almost a million people fled New York's Mean Streets during the decade for the safer, more stable suburbs, a population decline that took more than 20 years to reverse.

When discussing the current crisis, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, now seeking a third term, promises that he will not allow the city to return to the darkness of those days, although he stresses that it faces "giant financial problems."

"I know some are concerned that city services will erode," he recently told reporters. "Let me remind you that the city went down that road in the 1970s ... I can just tell you that we are not going to make that mistake again."

But behind the rhetoric, there are signs of a city under growing stress, including a rise in homelessness that's driving more families to shelters and last year's 57 percent spike in bank robberies.

There were 444 bank robberies in 2008 compared with 283 in 2007, according to the city Police Department.

Many individuals lost confidence in municipal bond insurers after their top ratings were slashed and were stung by last year's collapse of the auction-rate securities market.

New York City is one of the nation's premier issuers of municipal bonds and although capital markets have not temporarily locked it out as they have California, the city has slashed its average bond sales by a third. So instead of selling $1 billion at once, it now sells just $300 million.

The budget plan drawn up by New York State Governor David Paterson will cost the city $1.6 billion in cuts and force it to lay off thousands of police officers, firefighters and teachers, Bloomberg warned last week.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE50Q6IH20090127?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Author James Bamford looked into the performance of the NSA in his 2008 book, The Shadow Factory, and found that it had been closely monitoring the 9/11 hijackers as they moved freely around the United States and communicated with Osama bin Laden's operations center in Yemen. The NSA had even tapped bin Laden's satellite phone, starting in 1996.

"The NSA never alerted any other agency that the terrorists were in the United States and moving across the country towards Washington," Bamford told PBS.

Former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer told PBS, "None of this information that we're speaking about this evening's in the 9/11 Commission report. They simply ignored all of it."

Not only was then-Director Michael Hayden never held accountable for the NSA's alleged failure, but he went on to oversee the Bush administration's vast expansion of domestic surveillance. In 2006, he was appointed as director of the CIA.

The Spy Factory will be shown over most PBS stations on February 3, 2009 at 8 pm.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/PBS_NSA_tracked_911_hijackers_but_0127.html

A new bill has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives called the National Emergency Centers Act or HR 645. This bill if passed into law will direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish national emergency centers otherwise known as FEMA camp facilities on military installations. This is an incredibly disturbing piece of legislation considering that the powers that be have already set in motion an agenda to setup a nationwide marital law apparatus through U.S. Northern Command and the Department of Homeland Security.

Even though we already know that detention facilities are already in place, they now want to legalize the construction of FEMA camps on military installations using the ever popular excuse that the facilities are for the purposes of a national emergency. With the phony debt based economy getting worse and worse by the day, the possibility of civil unrest is becoming a greater threat to the establishment. One need only look at Iceland, Greece and other nations for what might happen in the United States next. With this in mind, it appears as if these so called national emergency centers will be used in a national emergency but only if the national emergency requires large groups of people to be rounded up and detained. If that isn’t the case, than why have these national emergency facilities built in military installations?
http://www.roguegovernment.com/Congress_Seeks_To_Authorize_%26_Legalize_FEMA_Camp_Facilities/14007/0/13/13/Y/M.html

The bill
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-645

More background information as the construction and development of national emergency facilities has been in process for some time

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- KBR, the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Co. (HAL:Halliburton Company), said Tuesday it has been awarded a contingency contract from the Department of Homeland Security to supports its Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in the event of an emergency. The maximum total value of the contract is $385 million and consists of a 1-year base period with four 1-year options. KBR held the previous ICE contract from 2000 through 2005. The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to expand existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs, KBR said. The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster, the company said.
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid={62C8724D-AE8A-4B5C-94C7-70171315C0A0}&dateid=38741.5136277662-858254656

ARLINGTON – Jan. 24, 2006 - KBR announced today that its Government and Infrastructure division has been awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to support the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in the event of an emergency. KBR is the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton (NYSE:HAL).

With a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term, consisting of a one-year based period and four one-year options, the competitively awarded contract will be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District. KBR held the previous ICE contract from 2000 through 2005.

“We are especially gratified to be awarded this contract because it builds on our extremely strong track record in the arena of emergency operations support,” said Bruce Stanski, executive vice president, KBR Government and Infrastructure. “We look forward to continuing the good work we have been doing to support our customer whenever and wherever we are needed.”

The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs. The contingency support contract provides for planning and, if required, initiation of specific engineering, construction and logistics support tasks to establish, operate and maintain one or more expansion facilities.

ICE was established in March 2003 as the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security. ICE is comprised of four integrated divisions that form a 21st century law enforcement agency with broad responsibilities for a number of key homeland security priorities.
http://www.kbr.com/news/2006/govnews_060124.aspx

Why exactly are prisons being built for "the rapid development of new programs". Halliburton's company site confirms that the government is engaged in a massive construction and preparation exercise to build concentration camps and prisoner processing facilities in the United States. This is particularity astonishing and disturbing considering that the U.S. already incarcerates more orders of magnitude more people than any other nation, about on-par with U.S.S.R. at the height of Stalin's era.

The contract of the Halliburton subsidiary KBR to build immigrant detention facilities is part of a longer-term Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of “all removable aliens” and “potential terrorists.” In the 1980s Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld discussed similar emergency detention powers as part of a super-secret program of planning for what was euphemistically called “Continuity of Government” (COG). These men planned for suspension of the Constitution, not just after nuclear attack, but for any “national security emergency,” which they vaguely defined in Executive Order 12656 of 1988.

Over 800 concentration camps are reported throughout the United States, all fully operational and ready to receive U.S. Prisoners who disagree with the government. The concentration camps are all staffed and manned by full-time guards, however, they are all empty. These camps are to be operated by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) when Martial Law is implemented in the United States (at the stroke of a Presidential pen and the Attorney General's signature on a warrant).
http://www.libertyforlife.com/jail-police/us_concentration_camps.htm

(July 4, 2008) Ex-US Intelligence operative Al Martin exposed the Shadow Government’s plan to arrest all those that opposed them in his book "The Conspirators." That CIA Operation Sledgehammer started under Reagan with Bush, Sr. as Vice President.
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=137&contentid=5287

In the spring of 1997, Senior Editor, Professor Ian Stewart, met with "Mr. Sea" (real name known but withheld) to discuss what he has learned first-hand about the coming persecution at the hands of the New World Order operatives. With a seven-inch thick portfolio filled with photographs, news articles, correspondence, etc., Mr. Sea revealed disturbing information about New World Order efforts to destroy and enslave America. The following are some of Mr. Sea‘s comments. But first, let's take a look at the man who made the comments.

Mr. Sea, a committed Christian, is a former inspector for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of Defense, with 31 years of federal service in the military, nine with the Department of Defense, including two years with the Air Staff. He’s a holder of the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, three awards of the Joint Service Medal, all of the Vietnamese awards, as well as the Joint Meritorious Unit Medal. When he retired a few years ago, he was awarded the Secretary of Defense Civilian Service Medal. He’s been around the world, to 31 countries on four continents, and speaks five languages. Mr. Sea spoke of the coming American Holocaust of the Government’s plans for dealing with the non-New World Orderites. He spoke of the infrastructure that has already been set up to incarcerate and execute Americans, and the locations of the facilities that will be used for these purposes, all with photographs, leaving little to the imagination.

"The infrastructure is set up. There are at least 130 concentration camps — quietly modified facilities which have sprung up and continue to spring up across the country, seemingly devoid of activity, yet requiring strange accoutrements such as barbed wire-topped fencing (with the tops turned inward) and helicopter wind socks. Most have good logistical supportability, with major highways and railroad transport facilities adjacent to the sites.

"These facilities, many in remote areas across our country, are set up to become concentration/detention camps, complete with gas chambers, for resisters and dissidents. Generally speaking, they’re set up for dissenters who will not go along with the New World Order. The ‘resisters’ are gun owners who refuse to give up their weapons; the ‘dissidents’ are Christians, Patriots and Constitutionalists. These camps are set up. I’ve seen many of them.

"On August 6, 1994, I toured the Amtrak Railcar Repair Facility at Beech Grove, Indianapolis, Indiana. There are at least ten maintenance barns at this facility, covering 129 acres, with two separate fences with the tops leaning inward. The windows of several buildings have been bricked up. Hence, you have three levels of security for Amtrak repair barns! There are three helicopter 25-knot aviation wind socks (which aren’t the correct ones to use for chemical spills which require 10-knot wind socks). There are high security NSA-style people turnstiles, and high intensity/security lighting for 24-hour operation. The box car (gas chamber) building fence is marked with special ‘RED/BLUE Zone’ signs [visible in the photo ]. This corresponds to the ‘mission’ of the RED/BLUE Lists which surfaced in June and July of 1996. Under martial law, this will become a death camp. They’re only going to handle category one and two (RED and BLUE) people there. This box car facility will be used for execution.

One of the barns is large enough to put four box cars into. There are powered vents on the top of the barn to vent the gas out of the building after the box cars have been fumigated. All of the buildings have newly installed six-inch gas pipes and furnaces installed in all ‘railroad barns.’ Since the photo [below] was taken in August 1994, FEMA has allocated $6 million to make the walls and roofs of the buildings ‘airtight’ (see article below). Under martial law, this facility could be immediately used as an SS-style ‘termination’ gas chamber.
http://www.prolognet.qc.ca/clyde/camp.htm

http://www.prolognet.qc.ca/clyde/eng.htm

"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist." - Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943

Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies," gives the executive the power to invoke martial law. For the first time in more than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in response to "a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order."

The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike.

Also in 2007, the White House quietly issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), to ensure "continuity of government" in the event of what the document vaguely calls a "catastrophic emergency." Should the president determine that such an emergency has occurred, he and he alone is empowered to do whatever he deems necessary to ensure "continuity of government." This could include everything from canceling elections to suspending the Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has yet to hold a single hearing on NSPD-51.

Other than Ron Paul, most of congress just signs off on the bills despite never even seeing/reading them.

Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Nicholas Cosmo, founder of Agape World Inc. in Hauppauge, New York, swindled investors out of more than $370 million and used the money to pay for limousines, fund a baseball league and pay off a restitution order from an earlier fraud, U.S. authorities said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aD69KX5PUmyI&refer=us

Some Forrest Gump sayings come to mind - key words are "earlier fraud". No pity for greedy buggers that ignore due diligence

Germany is this year set to record its largest post-war deficit, Angela Merkel, chancellor, said on Tuesday after an emergency meeting of her cabinet approved the government’s €50bn fiscal stimulus and amended the federal budget for 2009.

The admission comes amid mounting concern in ­Germany about the rapid deterioration of the public finances in the wake of the fiscal package and a brutal economic downturn.

A finance ministry official said political concerns – Germany holds a general election in September – were one reason why Peer Steinbrück, finance minister, had refused to set up a “bad bank” that would spend several hundred billion euros to acquire illiquid assets, something for which the financial sector has lobbied hard.

Instead of a bad bank, the government is considering a temporary acquisition of toxic assets. This would let the banks shoulder the risk associated with these assets, although it would allow them to stretch write-downs over many years.

The crisis has caused tension between industry and the banks, with the former accusing financial institutions of no longer playing their role as lenders to the economy.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f5d75d7e-ec99-11dd-a534-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

Sound familar?

More than a quarter of the nation’s bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Leaky pipes lose an estimated seven billion gallons of clean drinking water every day. And aging sewage systems send billions of gallons of untreated wastewater cascading into the nation’s waterways each year.

These are among the findings of a report to be released Wednesday by the American Society of Civil Engineers, which assigned an overall D grade to the nation’s infrastructure and estimated that it would take a $2.2 trillion investment from all levels of government over the next five years to bring it into a state of good repair.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/us/politics/28projects.html?_r=2&ref=us

By the time you add up all the taxes - city, county, state, federal, etc. We pay over 50% of our income, on average, to government institution of one form or another. What is our return on investment???

Valero Energy said it would close an entire US refinery this quarter as it slashes petrol production and sharply reduces capital spending to manage the economic slowdown.

The biggest US refiner has 15 refineries across the country. It said that in addition to shutting its large Texas City refinery, it would close the fluid catalytic cracking unit, which primarily produces petrol, at its Corpus Christi East Plant.

Valero has cut the average useage rate at such petrol-producing units to 70-75 per cent capacity, down from the near full capacity at which the whole US system was running just a few years ago.

“The sluggish economy is clearly a headwind against demand growth for refined products,’’ said Bill Klesse, Valero’s chairman and chief executive.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9d781cc8-ec93-11dd-a534-0000779fd2ac.html

There's your yardstick for how much the economy is slowing down - vastly reduced need for energy. If you don't have a job to go to every day - rapidly cuts down on your gasoline usage.

The week-to-week drop in applications was primarily due to a decline in refinance activity: Refinancing applications sank 48% for the week ended Jan. 23, compared with the previous week.

The four-week moving average for all mortgages was down 10.5%.
Refinancings accounted for 72.8% of all applications, down from 83.3% the previous week.

Despite...

According to the survey, rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 5.22% last week, down from 5.24% the week before.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/mortgage-applications-dropped-388-last/story.aspx?guid={BB2D3886-4886-4323-8A25-2CB875E76194}&siteid=yhoof

U.S. companies slashed nearly 60,000 jobs Monday, adding impetus to the Obama administration's efforts to reach agreement on a plan to pump $825 billion into the economy over a two-year period.

The cuts by firms including Caterpillar, General Motors, Texas Instruments, Home Depot, Sprint Nextel and Pfizer brought the total of jobs shed so far this month to 187,550, more than November or December and well over double the number of January 2008, according to employment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-fi-layoffs27-2009jan27,0,6782601.story

Small business accounts for 80% of the jobs.

Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. may manage the so-called bad bank that the Obama administration is likely to set up as it tries to break the back of the credit crisis, two people familiar with the matter said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aV_cdCMgc.pk&refer=worldwide

I could very well be ignorant...but how does a "bad bank" help the situation? What exactly constitutes a bad bank? Who's money is on the line for a "bad bank"? Again, Forrest Gump sayings come to mind like stupid is as stupid does. Or in other words, they must think the American people are pretty flippin' stupid to buy into this shenanigan!