It's happened! An all-white riot...!

by: Colin Flaherty 

(Editor’s note: Colin Flaherty has done more reporting than any other journalist on what appears to be a nationwide trend of skyrocketing black-on-white crime, violence and abuse. WND features these reports to counterbalance the virtual blackout by the rest of the media due to their concerns that reporting such incidents would be inflammatory or even racist. WND considers it racist not to report racial abuse solely because of the skin color of the perpetrators or victims.) Videos linked or embedded may contain foul language and violence.
Finally: A White Riot.

In Newark, Del., Monday night, police dispersed more than 3,000 rowdy teenagers who were just blowing off some steam at a “Shmacked Tour” party event.
Everyone was white. There might have been a few Asians here and there. But white was the color of this crime.
According to WDEL:

“More than 1,000 people were partying in the backyard of a house, where a DJ was spinning. When police arrived, the crowd broke up, blocking traffic on South College Avenue and Main Street. Police say many of the students walked on the hoods of cars. “

After the party broke up, the crowd – mostly of students from the University of Delaware – swelled to 3000, say police.

Local media called it a “riot.”
News of the white riot should provide some comfort to pundits at MSNBC and other liberal outlets. They insist that WND’s coverage of black mob violence – also documented in “White Girl Bleed a Lot: The return of racial violence to America and how the media ignore it” – is distorted because the news site and book ignore racial violence from white people.
Even the most devoted denier of black mob violence has to admit white mob mayhem is harder to find. Even so, contrasted with many of the more than 500 examples of black mob violence in WND and White Girl Bleed a Lot, this “riot” is something of a disappointment:

No fractured skulls.
No Apple picking.
No panicked calls to 911.
No bricks through storefronts.
No bottles thrown at cops.
No murders.
No stabbings.
Black mobs routinely terrorize cities across the country, but the media and government are silent. Read the detailed account of rampant racial crime in “White Girl Bleed a Lot: The return of race violence to America and how the media ignore it.” 

No kick downs.
No bloody faces.
No broken jaws.
No one in the hospital.
No gunfire.
No locks in socks.
No permanent brain damage.
No racist threats.
No beating old people.
No kicking pregnant women.
No baseball bats in the face.
No robberies.
No pushing people into moving cars on a busy street.
No toddler taunting.
Just one measly car fire. And a couple of people jumped on cars.
There was some public urination. And a few guys dropped their drawers, displaying their tighty whities. Other than that, a few parents wondered what videos of their children acting stupidly were doing up on the Internet.
You call that a riot?

The Shmacked Tour is organized by a video company that goes from college town to college town, filming college kids in their natural environment. They charge $20 to $75 a ticket. Think lots of beer and scantily clad college girls. Kind of a “Girls Go Wild” lite. The videos of the parties attract hundreds of thousands of viewers.
The company also sells T-shirts and other accessories.
On the bright side, they did have some pretty good excuses. The founder of the roving frat bash, Arya Toufania, explained it all to the Daily News after he learned his cameraman was one of three people arrested at the “riot.”

“The real instigators of the riot were the police. They could have shut the party down, cornered it off, it just seemed as if they were, like, monitoring the riot.”

At least they got that part right. The excuses, that is.
Meanwhile, the same night a few miles up the freeway in Chester, Pa., 100 black people were fighting in the street. Ten people were arrested. No one called that a riot. They called it a large fight.

When Philly.com tracked down Chester Police Commissioner Joseph Bail Jr. to ask about that riot, he put it all in perspective:
“We’ve had bigger.”
Black mobs routinely terrorize cities across the country, but the media and government are silent. Read the detailed account of rampant racial crime in “White Girl Bleed a Lot: The Return of Race Riots to America”

Pittsburgh Government Outlaws Parking in Driveways...Crazy sh**..!

by: Onan Coca
It is literally theater of the absurd in some of our cities today. The types of laws the government is passing and enforcing border on the demented. Yet we the people seem to be growing desensitized the utter foolishness of our leaders -- so much so that often times we’ve even stopped holding the accountable for their actions. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania gives us yet another opportunity to take note of what happens when fools are handed the reins of government. What’s going on in Pittsburgh you ask? In Pittsburgh the government has decided to enforce a law that does not allow you to park in your driveway.
I’m not kidding – park in your driveway and you risk paying a big fine to the local village idiot… I mean code enforcement.

http://youtu.be/Pe7Ocj3JiMc 





Apparently back in the 1950’s or so, the city passed an ordinance that said people had to park their cars at least 30 feet from the street. In today’s Pittsburgh this rule has become unbelievably difficult to follow. The city has changed and grown and for many people, parking at least 30 feet from the street is an impossibility.
“This is where I’ve been parking for over 18 years,” said local resident Eileen Freedman. She recently received a warning letter from the city saying, “We’re no longer allowed to use our driveway to park, because of a law that says you have to park at least 30 feet away from the street.” Freedman’s problem is that she can’t park 30 feet from the street, because the space between her and her neighbors home is too narrow for her car.
Pittsburgh City Councilman Corey O’Connor says it’s happened on two city streets but could happen anywhere in the city. “It’s a pretty ridiculous problem, actually,” said O’Connor. “If you’re a couple feet into your own personal driveway, there shouldn't be a problem.” O’Connor wants to get any tickets voided, and for the City Council to change the 30-foot rule. m

And who started handing out these warnings and fines again? The government employee who decided that it was a good idea to begin using this arcane law to fill the city’s coffers should be fined and fired for searching for ways to bilk the public. The lesson to learn here, folks, is that the government is constantly looking for ways to exploit its sugar daddy (that’d be you – taxpayer)… and that we need to make sure to put our collective foot down when we see them overreaching.

Is Obama A Secret Member Of The Muslim Brotherhood?

by John Myers
It is a travesty that on the 12^th anniversary of 9/11 President Barack Obama is poised to use our military to support Syrian rebels, many of whom pledge: “Death to America!”
Obama is prepared to take up arms against the Bashar Assad regime even though half of the anti-government rebels may be avid jihadists, some of whom have been busying themselves with SS-style executions of captured Syrian soldiers and attacks on Syrian Christians.
Last week, The Associated Press reported that “al-Qaida-linked fighters launched an assault on” the “Christian mountain village” of Maaloula, some 40 miles from Damascus. The rebels commandeered a mountaintop hotel and were shelling civilians, according to a nun who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Assad’s army, as brutal as it may be, had been protecting the village, whose residents speak a version of Aramaic, an ancient language that Christ is believed to have spoken.
“The stones are shaking,” a nun at Mar Takla told The AP. “We don’t know if the rebels have left or not. Nobody dares go out.”

The attacking of Christians by those supported by Obama is nothing new. It happened in Egypt. The recently overthrown Muslim Brotherhood destroyed churches and persecuted Christians. It is also an outspoken goal of some of the anti-Assad forces, including untold multitudes of al-Qaida affiliates that have entered the war and hail from as far away as Chechnya, the country of origin for the Boston bombers.
These are the same Syrian revolutionaries that Obama is risking world peace to defend with U.S. military might. The question we should ask is: Why? Some people within the Arab world think they know the answer, that Obama is a secret member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
So tweeted Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Center in Doha, Qatar.

  Shadi Hamid @shadihamid

If you missed it, "liberal" Egyptian newspaper has front page headline claiming Obama as full-on member of Muslim Brotherhood international.

10:45 AM - 1 Sep 2013 

The allegation was printed in Egyptian newspaper Al-Wafd.
“One could hardly come up with a more explosive allegation about a U.S. president than secret membership in an Islamist group,” wrote The Blaze.
Jonathan Spyer, senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center and an Arabic speaker, talked to The Blaze about Al-Wafd’s allegation.
Spyer said Egyptians are angry at the Obama Administration for not taking a stand against the Muslim Brotherhood. “There is some degree of justification” in the accusation that Obama is pro-Muslim Brotherhood, according to Spyer, because the president has not condemned the group.
The truth is that Obama has come right to the edge of endorsing the Muslim Brotherhood. Last week, in a story titled “‘My Administration is Proud to be Your Partner’, Obama Tells Muslim Brotherhood Pro-Hamas Group,” Frontpage Mag wrote:

Obama taped a statement congratulating ISNA [Islamic Society of North America], an unindicted co-conspirator in the Hamas Holy Land funding case, on its anniversary, telling the Muslim Brotherhood terror-linked front group, “My administration is proud to be your partner.”
ISNA’s president had met twice with Obama and Valerie Jarrett, making this a high end meeting. And Jarrett had addressed the ISNA convention back in 2009.
“Muslim Americans are integral part of our character and history and we rely on your innovation and entrepreneurship to help keep moving this country forward,” Obama told ISNA members. “Over the last half century, you have upheld the proud legacy of American Muslims’ contributions to our national fabric and this gathering is a testament of that tradition.”

Many people maintain that the ISNA is a front organization for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Obama’s Ridiculous ‘Red Line’ Excuse

Obama could write a book: How to Win Enemies and Influence Jihadists. The President has not improved the situation in the Mideast. And, after all, the region’s continual turmoil stems largely from American policy toward Saudi Arabia and Israel. Obama is simply aggravating the situation by attempting to drag America into another war in which some of those aided may bring terror to the United States in the future.
In May, I quoted the President in Paving the Road to Ruin with Islamists:

“We will not tolerate the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people.” Those are the words from President Barack Obama. He also warned that if the regime in Syria is using chemical weapons, it will have “crossed a red line” creating a “game changer” for his Administration.

I added:

The reasoning goes in Washington that America must stop Islamic religious and tribal factions from killing each other. Yet three thoughts come to mind:

1. Does America not have bigger national security problems, namely North Korea and its long-range missiles, which may already carry nuclear warheads?
2. If Muslims are killing each other, the Muslim extremists may be too busy to kill us.
3. How in the world can military intervention in the Mideast do anything other than make things worse?

I have not seen a good answer from the Obama Administration on these issues. What I have seen is an Administration with help from neocons in the Republican Party itching to help radical elements in Syria, come whatever may. To have it their way, they are harping on the use of chemical weapons in Syria, allegedly by Assad. The warmongers are now saying it was not the President who set the red line on their use; it was the world.
Secretary of State John Kerry recently stated: “This really is not President Obama’s red line. The president drew a line that anyone should draw with respect to this convention that we have signed up to, and which has been in place since the horrors of World War I.”
Are you serious, Secretary Kerry? For someone who brags about his combat record in Vietnam and is a self-proclaimed “warrior,” you seem to know little about the facts of that war, a war which you later so vehemently opposed.
Some 388,000 tons of napalm were dropped on targets in Vietnam by the Pentagon, resulting in the death of countless women and children. Since Vietnam, the use of napalm has been banned.

Prospect reported:

When the US used firebombs against Saddam’s army in 2003, the Pentagon vociferously denied that it was napalm. It later explained it was another incendiary that did not yet have such a bad reputation.

In 2004, in Fallujah, Iraq, U.S. troops used white phosphorus against Iraqi insurgents. Only after the Pentagon was caught lying about its use did our government admit to it. That incident was documented in the Italian television report “Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre.” The ghastly images include video and photographs of dead Iraqi civilians not so different from those used by the Obama Administration to build its case for war against the Assad regime.

http://youtu.be/yalyCk4kK-8 






Imagine how our government would have reacted had Russia called those incidents the crossing of a red line and lined up an attack fleet off our coast to punish the Bush Administration. It is an absurd notion, mostly because America is strong. However, Syria is weak.
Dispense with these inconvenient truths, say the neocon Republicans and the Obama Democrats. After all, Obama has a war to be waged and just perhaps a greater jihad to inspire.
Today is a sad day, my friends, not only because it is the anniversary of 9/11 but also because, at the very least, our President is a penny wise and a pound stupid when it comes to preventing another 9/11.

 

Are The Real Enemies In Syria Or Washington?

by Brandon Smith
“Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.”–Sun Tzu, The Art of War
The definition of what makes an “enemy” may vary from person to person. But I would say that, generally, an enemy is one who has an active ability to do irreparable harm to you or your essential values. He is motivated by destruction, the destruction of all that you hold dear. He is capable and motivated. He is a legitimate threat. He will not compromise. He will not waver. He will do anything to wound you. He will not stop. He is possessed.
Americans have spent the better part of a century being told who their enemies are with very little explanation or substantiation. We have blindly rallied around our patriotic prerogative without knowing the root cause of the conflict or the nature of the target we are told to annihilate. We have been suckered into war after war, conjured by international interests in order to lure us into accepting greater centralization and concentrated globalism. As a culture, I’m sorry to say, we have been used. We are a tool of unmitigated doom. We are the loaded gun in the hand of the devil.

This paradigm has done terrible harm to our standing in the eyes of the peoples of the world. But until recently, it has done very little harm to us as a society. We have allowed ourselves to be used like a bloody club, but we have not yet felt the true pain or the true cost. We have been insulated from consequence. However, this exalted situation is quickly coming to an end.
When one applies the above definition of “the enemy” to Syria, one comes away with very little satisfaction. The Syrian government poses absolutely no immediate threat to the United States. In fact, the civil war that now rages within its borders has been completely fabricated by the American government. The insurgency has been funded, armed, trained and ultimately directed by the U.S. intelligence community. Without U.S. subversion, the civil war in Syria would not exist.
So, the question arises: If Syria is not the real enemy, who is?
I point back to the core issue. That is to say, I would examine who poses a legitimate threat to our country and our principles. The Syrian government under Bashar Assad clearly has no capability to threaten our freedom, our economic stability, our social stability or our defensive capabilities. There is, though, a group of people out there who do, in fact, pose a significant threat to the American way of life on every conceivable level. These people do not live on the other side of the world. They do not wear foreign garb or speak another language. They do not have pigmented skin or Asian features. They look just like you and I, and they live in Washington.

If the so-called “debate” over a possible military strike in Syria has done anything, it has certainly brought the American public’s true enemies to the surface. Men who posed as liberal proponents of peace now salivate over the prospect of bloodshed. Men who posed as fiscal conservatives now clamor for more Federal funding to drive the U.S. war machine. Men who claimed to represent the citizenry now ignore all calls for reason in the pursuit of global dominance.
I have warned of the considerable dangers of a war in Syria for years — long before most people knew or cared about the Assad regime. Being in this position has allowed me to view the escalating crisis with a considerable amount of objectivity. In the midst of so much chaos and confusion, if you know who stands to gain and who stands to lose, the progression of events becomes transparent, and the strategy of the true enemy emerges.
So what have I observed so far?
If you want to know who has malicious intent toward our Constitutional values, simply move your eyes away from the Mideast and focus on our own capital. The ill will toward liberty held by the leadership of the Democratic and Republican parties is obvious in the Congressional support of the banker bailouts, the Patriot Acts, the National Defense Authorization Act, the President’s domestic assassination directives, the hands-off approach to National Security Agency mass surveillance, etc. But even beyond these litmus tests, the Syrian debate has unveiled numerous enemies of the American people within our own government.

The catastrophe inherent in a Syrian strike is at least partially known to most of the public. We are fully aware that there will be blowback from any new strike in the Mideast, economically as well as internationally. So if the average American with little political experience understands the consequences of such an action, the average politician should be more than educated on the dangers. Any representative who blatantly ignores the calamity ahead is either very stupid or has an agenda.
I find it fascinating that politicians and bureaucrats from both sides of the aisle are now coming out of the woodwork to cheerlead alongside each other for war and the state.
For those who are predominantly obsessed with Barack Obama as the source of all our ills, I would gladly point out that Republican leader and House Speaker John Boehner has thrown his support behind a Syrian strike, even before the U.N. investigative report on Syrian chemical weapons use has been released.
In the meantime, self-proclaimed Republican stalwarts like John McCain (R-Ariz.) have argued that Obama’s “limited strike” response is “not enough.” This is the same man, by the way, who has been instrumental in the monetary and military support of al-Qaida in Syria.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who not long ago ran for President on the platform of being an anti-war Democrat, now regularly begs the American people to back further war based on the same dubious evidence for which he once criticized the George W. Bush Administration. In fact, Kerry has made it clear that even if Congress votes “no” against a strike, he believes Obama has the right to set one in motion anyway.
Senator Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), the man who openly admits in mainstream interviews that he believes the President has the right to indefinitely detain or assassinate American citizens without trial or oversight, has loudly indicated his support for a war on Syria. His criticisms parallel McCain’s in that he believes the Obama Administration should have attacked without Congressional approval or should commit to an all-out military shift into the region. Graham consistently fear mongers in the mainstream media. He warns that without a hard, immediate strike against Syria, catastrophe will befall Israel, and chemical and nuclear weapons will rain on America.
All I have to say to Graham is, if chemical or nuclear weapons are used against the American people, it will be because the establishment allowed it to happen — just as it has allowed numerous attacks in the past to occur in order to facilitate pretext for a larger war (Gulf of Tonkin, anyone?).

For those out there in the movement who are hoping for reason and logic to prevail during the Congressional debate on the Syrian issue, I would suggest that they do not hold their breath. This vote was decided before Obama ever allowed it to go to the Hill. The vote has been cast. The debate is a sideshow designed to make the American people feel as if their system of government still functions as it should. Remember, no Congress in the history of the United States has ever refused the request of a President to make war.
The more than 150 Congressmen who demanded a vote on the Syrian crisis did so because they wanted to be included in the process, not because they necessarily opposed a war. That leaves nearly 300 representatives who had no problem whatsoever with Obama attacking Syria unilaterally without any checks or balances. The Senate panel that initiated the voting process on the strike plan passed the initiative 10-7. I have no doubt that Obama has the votes to confirm the use of force.
But let’s say Obama does not get his Congressional approval; his office has asserted on numerous occasions that he has the authority to trigger war regardless. A “no” vote in Washington means nothing today. The probable scenario, though, is the most common scenario. Congress will most likely authorize the “use of military force” without directly declaring war on the Assad regime. This is exactly what Congress did in the wake of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. There was no evidence of an al-Qaida support structure and no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, but war rolled forward nonetheless. Congress gave Bush a blank check to do whatever he saw fit, and I believe this is what it will do for Obama.

America is being set up to look like the bad guy or the fool. Our political leadership is devoted to the ideology of globalization, not sovereignty or U.S prosperity. A Syrian strike places the United States in tremendous peril, the likes of which have not been seen since the Cuban missile crisis. Syria itself is a vacuum of death, a black hole swirling in a void of economic and sociological interdependency. Where the United States enters, so follows Iran, so follows Israel, so follows Saudi Arabia, so follows Lebanon, so follows Jordan, so follows Egypt, so follows Russia, so follows China and on and on.
In my analysis of Syria over the years, I have exposed the domino effect of war as well as the calamities of economic chain reaction. Escalating war in Syria will eventually lead to the end of the dollar’s world reserve status and the collapse of the U.S. financial system. Knowing that this is the ultimate result of a strike in the region, many people would ask why the White House and so many prominent figures in Congress would be so hell-bent on setting the wheels in motion. I would stand back from the chaos and ask what I always ask: Who gains the most from the disaster?
The demise of American currency dominance and the degradation of the American spirit do indeed benefit a select few. For the most part, central banks and globalists have taken a hands-off approach to the Syrian debacle. Perhaps that’s because doing so makes it easier for them to survey the inevitable collapse from a distance and swoop in later as our “saviors,” ready to rebuild the globe according to their own ideals. Having a debased and desperate U.S. populace certainly makes the transition to total globalization and centralization much easier.

My original query was: Who is the real enemy? No matter what happens in the coming months and years, never forget that question. Who poses the greatest threat to our freedom: Syria or the political ghouls trying to convince us to decimate Syria?
Who claims the power to take everything we have? Who claims the power to take our liberty and our lives at a whim? Who claims the power to kill innocents in our name? Who disregards the checks and balances of constitutionalism at every turn? Who truly threatens our future and the future of our children?
Do not be distracted by stories of foreign monsters so far away when the real monsters lurk so quietly under your bed. If we can find a way to pressure Congress into avoiding a Syrian conflict, remain vigilant. America is one global hiccup away from oblivion. And if this is what the establishment wants, they will find a way to make it happen. The threat of U.S. catastrophe will end only when the poison is removed from our very veins, and that process of purification begins with the removal of the criminal political structures and banking structures in Washington.

Government Seeking Inclusion of ‘Social and Behavioral’ Data in Health Records

BY: Elizabeth Harrington 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) wants to require health care providers to include “social and behavioral” data in Electronic Health Records (EHR) and to link patient’s records to public health departments, it was announced last week.
Health care experts say the proposal raises additional privacy concerns over Americans’ personal health information, on top of worries that the Obamacare “data hub” could lead to abuse by bureaucrats and identify theft.
The CMS currently covers 100 million people through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Hospital Insurance Program and is tasked with running Obamacare.
According to a solicitation posted by the Department of Health and Human Services on Sept. 4, the CMS is commissioning the National Academy of Sciences to study how best to add social and behavioral factors to electronic health record reporting.
The agency said adding social and behavioral data to patients’ online records will improve health care.
“Increasing EHR adoption has the potential to improve health and health care quality,” the contract’s statement of work (SOW) reads. “Parallel advances in analytic tools applied to such records are fueling new approaches to discovering determinants of population health.”

The project sets out to identify “core data standards for behavioral and social determinants of health to be included in EHRs.”
Critics suggested this would create new bureaucracies and negatively impact health care.
“This sounds like an example of the federal government further intruding on the practice of medicine,” said Chris Jacobs, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
“It’s including more pay for performance requirements on physicians to collect all sorts of data in order to get government reimbursements,” he said.
The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act gave authority to the CMS to pay hospitals and doctors that make the switch to electronic health records, to “encourage widespread EHR adoption.”
Health care professionals who began participating in the program in 2011 or 2012 can receive up to $44,000 for using EHRs for Medicare and $63,750 for Medicaid over 5 and 6 years, respectively.

Though the program is “totally voluntary,” eligible professionals who are not using EHRs by 2015 will see a 1 percent reduction in their Medicare and Medicaid fees each year.
Jacobs says the government’s “pay for conformance” culture in health care is “telling doctors what they have to do and how they have to do it in order to receive government reimbursement.”
The “meaningful use” program already requires doctors and hospitals to report the demographics of a patient and if he smokes to qualify for its first step. The second stage, planned for 2014, will require recording a patient’s family health history.
The National Academy of Sciences will make recommendations for adding social and behavioral data for stage three, which will be unveiled in 2016.
A spokesman for the CMS told the Washington Free Beacon that the agency is in the early stages of crafting the requirements for this stage.

“While we know that they are considering [clinical quality measures], it would allow a greater variety of specialties and procedures to be included,” said Tony Salters, a spokesman for CMS. “This includes items like behavioral health, dental care, drug, and alcohol use, etc.”
The CMS issued a “sole source” contract to the National Academy of Sciences because of “its caliber and expertise in the medical profession,” they said.
A spokeswoman for the National Academy of Sciences told the Free Beacon that the study began on July 15.
Working with the Institute of Medicine, a committee is currently drafting suggestions for collecting social and behavioral data.
The committee will “identify core social and behavioral domains to be included in all EHRs,” the organization said.
Not only will the committee come up with what behavioral data will be collected, they will also suggest how that data can be shared with public health departments.

The contract orders the committee to identify, “Possibilities for linking EHRs to public health departments, social service agencies, or other relevant non-health care organizations and case studies, if possible, of where this has been done and how issues of privacy have been addressed.”
The committee will also look at the “obstacles” to collecting social data for EHRs, and “how these obstacles can be overcome.”
Jacobs said the study is troubling in light of security issues with the Obamacare “data hub,” which will collect Social Security numbers and personal information to verify participation in the health insurance marketplace, beginning on Oct. 1.
“We’ve already seen with the Obamacare data hub and the significant delays that have been associated with it,” he said. “Government auditors have raised concerns about maintaining timelines and implementation and whether the data hub can be implemented in a secure manner that ensures Americans’ medical and financial records aren’t at risk.”
Others have warned that the database is vulnerable to abuse by the numerous government agencies involved, including the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, state Medicaid databases, and the Social Security Administration.

The potential for social and behavioral data to be shared with government agencies is only more worrisome, Jacobs said.
“This study raises additional questions about the privacy and security implications of the federal government sharing personal health data with other organizations and entities,” he said.

Let’s Drink to Phasing Out the First Lady

By Nick Gillespie 

Just how bad is America’s underemployment crisis, in which college grads toil in dead-end jobs that don’t even require higher education, much less advanced degrees?
Consider this: The country’s leading health-and-nutrition buttinsky has not just one but two Ivy League diplomas and earned over a quarter-of-a-million dollars back in 2006, before the Great Recession destroyed the hopes and dreams of entire generations, including those not yet born. Now she makes no salary at all and provides diet-and-exercise information that doesn’t even require a GED.

I speak of course of First Lady Michelle Obama, whose bold new initiative aims to get Americans to drink more…water. “Water is so basic,” Mrs. Obama told residents of Wisconsin’s Watertown (a coincidence, I’m sure). “And because it is so plentiful, sometimes we just forget about it amid all the ads we watch on television and all the messages we receive every day about what to eat and drink….The truth is, water just gets drowned out.”
Screw “Let’s Move,” Mrs. Obama’s previous crusade, which was designed to make us exercise. Now it’s time for “Let’s Drink.” But only water. Even in this economy – and despite ubiquitous government surveillance, constant rumors of war, and the slim but real possibility that any of us might accidentally show up on her husband’s secret kill list.
Can we please make it stop? And by it, I don’t just mean Mrs. Obama’s seemingly non-stop nagging and noodging about our weight. (In 2010, she transformed the South Lawn into a fitness boot camp for the White House Easter Egg Roll.)
And I don’t just mean her high-profile faux pas, such as when she showed up to dish out food to the homeless while sporting a pair of $540 sneakers. Or her pricey Christmas displays whose extravagance calls to mind both Marie Antoinette and Nancy Reagan.

No, I mean the entire Office of the First Lady, which consists of about two dozen people whose salaries are paid for by taxpayers. Isn’t there a budget crisis going on? Money is supposed to be so tight at the federal level that White House tours have been canceled and the president is down to employing just two (count ‘em) calligraphers. And yet we can afford a publicly subsidized entourage for the First Lady?
It’s not simply a question of money, of course. And it’s certainly not a question of gender, either. Who can imagine what fresh horrors await the American public if and when Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton gain the Oval Office? Could official “Let’s Snowmobile!” or “Let’s Kegel!” crusades be far off if Todd Palin or Bill Clinton become First Dude?
There’s a larger philosophical question at issue here. The whole point of a small “R” republic such as America is that it is supposed to do away with the spectacular and gaudy displays of familial privilege favored by monarchy and aristocracy. The government is not only elected, it’s supposed to be limited and its representatives – including the president him or herself – should eschew the courtly trappings of kings and queens.

Bill Clinton’s “two for the price of one” line back in 1992 didn’t simply rankle people who disliked Hillary Clinton – it offended people who take seriously the whole basis of the United States. To her credit, if not necessarily the country’s benefit, Hillary Clinton has blazed her own path as a senator and cabinet official (even as she must be agonizing over the prospect of Bill as First Husband).
It would be far better if Michelle Obama – and all past and future First Spouses – had taken the cues laid down by Howard Dean’s wife during the former Vermont governor’s bid for president in 2004. A practicing medical doctor, Judith Steinberg Dean chose to continue making rounds with her patients rather than jawboning the press and boring people with pet projects and causes. Ironically, her decision was seen as controversial precisely because it revealed that the Deans understood the deep structure of what is truly radical in the American political experiment.
Would that Michelle Obama might learn that lesson. Certainly she would be a far stronger role model – for young women and recent college grads, at least – if she continued to pursue her own career and show how it’s still possible to use what you learn in college in your professional life. That would surely be worth drinking to – and probably with something a bit stronger than water.

It's Friday the 13th....!

Be on guard alQaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood [Jason's] are on the prowl...!
http://youtu.be/2S8YFTcEDME

Same-sex marriage: Pa. judge orders clerk to stop issuing licenses to couples

[Judge Dan Pellegrini] 
Puts the gavel down...No on Gay Marriage 


by: Mark Guarino 
More than 100 couples wed in Pennsylvania after receiving licenses from a county clerk who declared, after the Supreme Court DOMA ruling, that the state ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Only a court can make that ruling, the judge said.

Marriage licenses will no longer be given out to same-sex couples in Pennsylvania, a state judge has ruled, putting into limbo the legal status of more than 100 couples who married recently despite a long-standing ban on same-sex marriage in the state.
Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini ordered Montgomery County Register of Wills D. Bruce Hanes on Thursday to stop issuing the licenses, which 174 couples received since July 31.
Judge Pellegrini ruled that Mr. Hanes did not have the power to violate the state law defining marriage as between a man and a woman, which has been in place since 1996. Pennsylvania is one of 37 states that ban, or do not recognize same-sex marriage.

RECOMMENDED: Gay marriage battlegrounds: 12 states to watch  

“A clerk of courts has not been given the discretion to decide ... whether the statute he or she is charged to enforce is a good idea or bad one, constitutional or not. Only the courts have the power to make that decision," Pellegrini wrote.
In June the US Supreme Court ruled that the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was unconstitutional, saying Congress cannot treat same-sex couples differently than it does opposite-sex couples.
The ruling primarily applied to same-sex couples living in states where gay marriage is legal in allowing them all the federal benefits of traditional couples.
But the language of the majority opinion gave new momentum to legal challenges to state restrictions on same sex marriages, including in Pennsylvania.
In July, Mr. Hanes said that the state law on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional and therefore he had no obligation to enforce it. Following the Thursday ruling, Hanes said he will comply and no longer issue licenses to same-sex couples but is considering an appeal to the state Supreme Court.
The Pennsylvania Health Department, operating under Gov. Tom Corbett (R) took Hanes to court to stop his actions. General counsel for the Corbett administration, James Schultz, praised the Thursday ruling.
“The key question in this case has been whether any local official, anywhere in Pennsylvania, has the ability to decide which laws to uphold and which laws to reject based on their own personal legal opinion,” Mr. Schultz said in a statement. 

However, advocates for same-sex marriage are interpreting the ruling differently. They argue that Pellegrini merely made a ruling based on procedure, and not on the constitutional status of same-sex marriage. He also failed to declare the marital status of the 118 license holders who wed since late July.
“It said nothing about couples already married, which is at least a victory for those couples and for marriage equality in Pennsylvania,” said State Sen. Daylin Leach (D), a supporter of Hanes’ actions.
John Dinan, a professor of politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., says that it is “not clear” whether the couples who wed after receiving their licenses are indeed legally married in the state.
“On the face of things, that statute precludes the marriages that were celebrated (recently), but from a legal standpoint, one would have to bring a suit to secure a judgment, but it’s not certain who would bring that,” Professor Dinan says.
There are already lawsuits underway in both state and federal court challenging the Pennsylvania ban. Last week, a lesbian couple filed a lawsuit in state court and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a similar suit in federal court in July. Both cases are pending.
Expected to bolster both cases is the announcement in July by the state Attorney General Kathleen Kane that she will not defend the state in the ACLU challenge because she believed the ban is “wholly unconstitutional.”

Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states targeted by Freedom to Marry, a gay-rights group based in Washington that is spending more than $6 million to push same-sex marriage by 2016.

UNR WolfPack Football...2013-14 1st Season w/Out Chris Ault as Head Coach

Here Comes Your WolfPack: )




Last Years season: http://sharlaslabyrinth.blogspot.com/2012/09/unr-wolfpack-off-to-great-season_23.html  

2013-2014 SCHEDULE Overall 1-1 Conf. 0-0 Home 1-0 Away 0-1 Neutral 0-0

Date	Opponent / Event	Location	Time / Result
08/31/13	at UCLA	Pasadena, Calif.	L, 58-20
09/07/13	vs. UC Davis	Reno, Nev.	W, 36-7
09/14/13	at Florida State	Tallahassee, Fla.	12:30 p.m. PT
09/21/13	vs. Hawai'i *	Reno, Nev.	5:05 p.m. PT
09/28/13	vs. Air Force *	Reno, Nev.	5:05 p.m. PT
10/04/13	at San Diego State *	San Diego, Calif.	6:00 p.m. PT
10/19/13	at Boise State *	Boise, Idaho	5:00 p.m. PT
10/26/13	vs. UNLV *	Reno, Nev.	TBA
11/02/13	at Fresno State *	Fresno, Calif.	TBA
11/09/13	at Colorado State *	Fort Collins, Colo.	TBA
11/16/13	vs. San Jose State *	Reno, Nev.	TBA
11/30/13	vs. BYU	Reno, Nev.	12:05 p.m. PT
12/07/13	Mountain West Championship *	TBD	TBA

Game by Game :
08/31/13at vUCLA   L,58-20
09/07/13vs UCDavis  W,36-7
09/14/13vs FSU         L,62-7 
09/21/13vs Hawaii     W,31-9
09/28/13vs AirForce   W,45-42
10/04/13 vs SDS          L,51-40 
10/19/13 vs Boise State L,34-17

10/26/13vsUNLV L,27-22  11/2/13 vsFresno L,41-23 11/09/13vsColorado  L,38-17 11/16/13vsSanJoseState W,16-38 11/30/133vsBYU  12/07/13 Mountain West Championship

Coverage

TV:		ESPN
Radio:		ESPN Radio 94.5 FM

Too Fast, Too Furious: Jose Velasco-Veyro Faces False Federal Charges

[Kansas U.S. Attorney Barry R. Grissom]


[Ks Assistant US Attorney Terra D Morehead]
 by Lorne Dey
US~Observer Preface: We all know about the deadly mistake made by the Justice Department authorizing and releasing guns to cartels and common criminals in Mexico, and this “Fast and Furious” gun-running scheme remains a blemish on Attorney General Eric Holder’s reputation. It, however, is being obfuscated by something more insidious: entrapment and further cover-up. The Justice Department is trying to divert attention from its own wrongdoings by framing certain innocent Hispanic-Americans for gun-running schemes that the Justice Department itself initiated. Further, by taking these law-abiding people, violating their civil rights by depriving them of medicines and placing them in dungeon-like cells, they prove themselves to be anything but the “Justice Department.”
The following article should outrage every American. Demand accountability!
Wichita, Kan. — On April 19, 2012, 66-year-old Jose Velasco-Veyro was arrested in his home after a small army of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents and U.S. marshals stormed his bedroom at 6 a.m. with an arrest warrant naming him as a co-conspirator in an alleged gun-running operation.

After several hours of interrogation — during which he was repeatedly asked about how many guns he owned and what he knew about one of his friends and alleged co-conspirators, Ramon Chavez — Velasco-Veyro was arrested and taken 210 miles away to the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas in Kansas City to be indicted. The indictment, which includes 11 others, six Caucasians and five Hispanics besides Velasco-Veyro, is for 18 counts ranging from conspiring to “export and send from the United States, and attempt to export and send from the United States… firearms… to be intended for exportation contrary to any law and regulation of the United States” to being “willfully engaged in the business of dealing in firearms while not being a licensed dealer of firearms” — or, according to Velasco-Veyro’s quote from the ATF agent in charge of the raid, for “sending guns to the cartels in Mexico and selling guns to illegal aliens and felons.”

After arriving in court and hearing the charges against him during his arraignment, Velasco-Veyro described how he and the five other Hispanics were denied bail by Judge James P. O’Hara on the advisement of Assistant Prosecutor Terra D. Morehead, who reportedly stated that the six Hispanics were “flight risks and a danger to the community.” To this day, Velasco-Veyro wonders why Morehead considered the six Caucasian co-defendants were considered incapable of being flight risks and dangers to the community and why they were granted bail while the six Hispanics were kept locked up with no bail. Two of the six Hispanics were reportedly put in solitary confinement for no reason other than that they were Hispanic and alleged to be gun traffickers. Is this not torture and racism?

Presumed Guilty, Treated As A Convicted Felon Before Trial Or Due Process

With bail denied and allegedly after barely five minutes to confer with his court-appointed attorney and provide financial information for the court, Velasco-Veyro was whisked away and strip-searched, then put in full-body chains and loaded on to a van bound for prison. It wasn’t until August 2012, that he was finally allowed to be let out on bail by Judge Beth Phillips. According to Velasco-Veyro, Phillips “was apparently not in the hip pocket of prosecutor Morehead” because “Morehead became enraged when Judge Phillips granted him bail.”
Upon examination of the indictment, Velasco-Veyro is named in only three of the 18 counts contained therein, the first being what is mentioned above, along with a list of additional statutes.
A naturalized U.S. citizen, Velasco-Veyro has resided in the United States since 1965, when he entered the country on a student visa. He has never been guilty of breaking any law in his entire life.
Resulting from our investigation, it is also clear that Velasco-Veyro had never met any of his alleged co-conspirators before his indictment other than Chavez, Chavez’s son Douglas and Chavez’s ex-wife, Tammie Chavez.

Velasco-Veyro collects antique and custom firearms. He has only sold guns from his private collection, primarily at local gun shows. Our investigation showed that over the past 14 years, he has sold no more than 15 to 20 guns, primarily target guns or hunting rifles — certainly not the kinds of guns that would interest members of drug cartels. He said that although he has sold some of his guns at gun shows in Wichita, where he has resided for the past 28 years, he has never rented a table on his own. He said he never had enough firearms that he wanted to part with at any one time to warrant renting a full table. Instead, Velasco-Veyro stated that he rented space from his acquaintance, Ramon Chavez, one of the individuals indicted along with him and whose name appears on 13 of the total 18 counts.

False And Manufactured Charges

Velasco-Veyro was charged along with his 11 co-defendants for allegedly sending guns to Oklahoma. However, our investigation has revealed that he has never transported any guns to that State or any other State and that the prosecution has manufactured these charges in an attempt to make the alleged gun-running ring appear as large as possible.
The second count against Velasco-Veyro is for selling, as stated on the indictment, a “9mm Fratelli Tangoflio pistol… to an individual, who was a Missouri resident, at a gun show held… in Wichita, Kansas.” The “individual” has reportedly been identified as ATF Special Agent Steve Lester, who, after “wrangling over price,” purchased Velasco-Veyro’s pistol from him. Since there is no Federal law requiring unlicensed sellers to ask for identification from a potential purchaser before selling a gun at a gun show and because Velasco-Veyro had no reason to suspect the undercover agent was from another state, Velasco-Veyro sold his gun to Lester, who allegedly later took the gun to Missouri.
Convinced he had done nothing illegal, the first chance he got after he was released from his prison cell, Velasco-Veyro contacted the ATF about his alleged unlawful gun sale. The following is the emailed response that Velasco-Veyro received from the Firearms Industry Programs Branch of the ATF:

"This is in response to your email to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).  In your email, you provided a scenario of an unlicensed buyer from Missouri who travels to a gun show in Kansas. The buyer purchases a handgun from another unlicensed resident of Kansas at the gun show. You want to know if that was illegal. Federal law under 18 U.S.C. §922(a)(1)(3) states in part; it shall be unlawful for any person other than a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector to transport into or receive in the State where he resides (or if the person is a corporation or other business entity, the State where it maintains a place of business) any firearm purchased or otherwise obtained by such person outside that State. Therefore, a person may only acquire a firearm within the person’s own State, except that he or she may purchase or otherwise acquire a rifle or shotgun, in person, at a licensee’s premises in any State, provided the sale complies with State laws applicable in the State of sale and the State where the purchaser resides. A person may borrow or rent a firearm in any State for temporary use for lawful sporting purposes." 

The above statute provided by the ATF clearly puts the burden on the unlicensed purchaser and not the unlicensed seller. Since there is no Federal law that requires unlicensed sellers to ask for identification from potential buyers at gun shows and since Velasco-Veyro did not know nor was required to find out that the buyer, Lester, was allegedly from another State and/or not a licensed gun dealer (according to U.S. Code sent to Velasco-Veyro by the ATF), it was Lester who broke the law by purchasing Velasco-Veyro’s Fratelli Tangoflio pistol in Kansas and then transporting it to Missouri, where he supposedly resided.
I should note that it is common practice for unethical Federal agents to make claims like, “I told the seller that I was from another State” or in this case, “I informed Jose Velasco-Veyro that I was from Missouri.” This ATF investigation has been ongoing since 2005. Other purchases from co-defendants were videotaped or recorded. However, we have not found that the sale between Velasco-Veyro and Lester was recorded in any way. This leads us to believe that if this case goes to trial, Lester will claim he told Velasco-Veyro that he was from Missouri. With no recording, Lester’s anticipated testimony must be considered false, especially in light of Velasco-Veyro’s 66-year track record of integrity and honesty.
The third and last charge against Velasco-Veyro is that he “knowingly and willfully received and possessed the following firearms.” What follows is a woefully incomplete list of firearms that allegedly belonged to Velasco-Veyro that are mostly quoted in the indictment as “Unknown caliber Unknown manufacturer… Unknown Model… unknown serial number.”

Since the gun types alleged to belong to Velasco-Veyro are largely unidentified in the indictment as to make, model and caliber, we can report only Velasco-Veyro’s contention that his guns are primarily foreign-made target and hunting firearms manufactured before 1968 and before a Federal law that states that all firearms entering the United States be required to have an import stamp located on the firearm and that, according to an ATF letter dated Dec. 12, 2012, in response to an inquiry from Velasco-Veyro about his antique collection: “It is not unlawful for a private individual to be in possession of a firearm that does not have importer markings.”
According to Velasco-Veyro, he is a collector of many pre-World War I firearms or others that were manufactured and imported into the United States before the 1968 law required that all imported firearms have import markings stating “name of the manufacturer, country of origin, model (if assigned), caliber or gauge, name of importer, city and state of importer” and that “these markings must appear conspicuously on the frame, receiver, barrel (or slide).” The alleged conspicuous lack of most of this information associated with the firearms Velasco-Veyro is alleged to have possessed in the indictment is compelling evidence that he indeed owns the types of guns he claims. According to the ATF, they are not illegal. And as Velasco-Veyro asserts, they are the types of guns that members of drug cartels would probably not be interested in. US~Observer sources have informed us that Velasco-Veyro’s claims about his gun collection are spot-on accurate.

The above letter from the ATF is deliberately mentioned in this article because it would seem to exonerate Velasco-Veyro of any wrongdoing. The U.S. Codes quoted and sent by the ATF are extremely important, since the US~Observer has learned from a source that Morehead allegedly plans to keep this correspondence from being entered into court and, hence, from the eyes and ears of a jury. Our source also told us that the ATF did not contact Morehead regarding Velasco-Veyro, as she contends, but that it was she who contacted the ATF and then ordered it to “cease and desist” from corresponding with Velasco-Veyro in any way. If this allegation is true, then Morehead is instigating a gross miscarriage of justice; and we will do everything in our power to prevent her from following through on her nefarious schemes.

Deliberate Denial Of Jose Velasco-Veyro’s 6th Amendment Rights

Almost since the day he was arrested and thrown into prison, Velasco-Veyro — who has been declared indigent by the court and whose home is 210 miles from the prosecutor’s office and his attorney — has repeatedly asked to have in his possession the discovery in his case. In other words, he wants to see and study the evidence Morehead has against him so he can aid and assist in his own defense, something that is his Constitutional, 6th Amendment right. However, the US~Observer has learned that Velasco-Veyro’s requests have been repeatedly denied by Morehead. This is yet another violation of Velasco-Veyro’s rights, as he can’t aid and assist in his own defense if he is allowed to see the evidence against him only occasionally and for relatively short periods of time. This is particularly important in his case since, according to Velasco-Veyro, he has done a cursory examination of two recorded conversations between himself and his acquaintance Ramon Chavez that occurred in Spanish that, when translated into English by Morehead’s office, show evidence of being manipulated to make him appear guilty. It is absolutely Velasco-Veyro’s right to have these entire unmolested conversations along with the rest of his discovery at his disposal so he can take all the time he needs to pour over those entire conversations to ensure that he has not been unjustly portrayed and/or quoted out of context.

The US~Observer has learned of still another ploy used by Morehead’s office, wherein she is invoking an enigmatic “Rule 16” that allegedly allows her to deny Velasco-Veyro his right to receive in his possession his full discovery. A source has told us of a letter from U.S. Attorney Barry R. Grissom’s office and signed by Morehead that essentially orders Velasco-Veyro’s attorney not to give discovery to his client by stating: “You are not permitted to make copies of this discovery. You are not permitted to share this discovery with anyone other than your client pursuant to the court’s order.” Let me remind Morehead that in Marbury v. Madison, a monumental Supreme Court case, Chief Justice John Marshall declared that any law repugnant to the Constitution is null and void. An un-Constitutional “Rule 16” is a poor excuse to deny Velasco-Veyro his Constitutional right and only makes one wonder why Morehead doesn’t want Velasco-Veyro to be able to effectively aid and assist in his own defense. What does she fear?

Because firearms alleged to have been sold by Velasco-Veyro reportedly differ so greatly from other guns mentioned in the indictment, his attorney has asked Morehead for him to be allowed to see his confiscated collection to identify them as his (if they are) and tag them as separate from the other types of firearms in the indictment that are the kinds of guns that would interest drug cartels in Mexico. Morehead has denied this request, alleging that allowing Velasco-Veyro to view his sequestered firearms inside an ATF warehouse constitutes “possession.” If indeed Morehead intends to railroad Velasco-Veyro into appearing he is part of something illegal when he is not, it is imperative that his firearms not be shown to a jury in such a way that his “markedly different” firearms not be lumped in with the more modern, “combat type” weapons that do interest members of cartels. Not allowing Velasco-Veyro this right or to see his own guns is another Constitutional violation at the hands of Morehead. What is she hiding?

Besides racial profiling and racism, other allegations by Velasco-Veyro are that he and the other Hispanics incarcerated along with him are part of “pressure Morehead is receiving from higher up that is pushing her to prosecute people like him as part of shifting blame from the ATF agents involved in Attorney General Eric Holder’s Fast and Furious debacle and put it on Hispanics with ties to Mexico.” According to Velasco-Veyro, what has been done to him and his five Hispanic co-defendants is straight out of Katie Pavlich’s book Fast And Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and its Shameless Cover-up. Since Morehead doesn’t appear to be working for the sake of justice, just who is she working for?
Out of complete fairness, our investigation has shown that some of Velasco-Veyro’s co-defendants may indeed be guilty of illegal “gun-running.” However, we have concluded factually that Velasco-Veyro is completely innocent of the charges leveled against him.

Hopefully, the last grievous act against Velasco-Veyro by the District of Kansas “justice system” was allegedly perpetrated while he was incarcerated in prison. Velasco-Veyro has a condition called diabetic neuropathy that is a byproduct of diabetes. He has been taking medications for it since 2006. He says the medicine helps ease the pain associated with his condition, which can become especially acute in cold temperatures. During his imprisonment, Velasco-Veyro was denied these literally lifesaving medications that, among other things, keep his blood pressure from becoming lethally high. When his doctor, Robert McIntyre, called the prison physician, Donald Satterfield, to explain the absolute necessity that Velasco-Veyro be allowed to receive his medications, Satterfield told McIntire that “there are no choir boys here,” and he denied McIntyre’s request and Velasco-Veyro’s medications. Velasco-Veyro described the nights in prison as “pure torture” since he says his prison cell was “habitually kept between 50 and 55 degrees,” which caused him “such great pain that he could not sleep.” McIntyre also said that to deny Velasco-Veyro these crucial medications, he knew that the “system was either trying to break him or kill him.” George Newell Bentley, a doctor from Texas confirms, what McIntyre has reported. Both professionals are ready, willing and more than able to testify to these facts under oath. They are both also ready to testify that Velasco-Veyro is a person who possesses impeccable honesty and integrity.

To place two Hispanics in solitary confinement and deprive another innocent Hispanic of his life-sustaining medication, can only be considered pure torture and racism.
According to US~Observer sources within the Federal justice system and based on the facts in this case, Morehead is a shameful example of the public’s trust.
Morehead is under the authority of U.S. Attorney Barry R. Grissom, and ultimate responsibility for this miscarriage of justice is his. The US~Observer urges Grissom to investigate the facts in this case and the charges against his subordinate and to take appropriate action against her for the sake of all prosecutors who are required to dispense justice according to the law with fairness and without bias.
The way Velasco-Veyro has been treated at the hands of authorities who are supposed to protect his Constitutional rights is absolutely unconscionable. He has been treated like a criminal from the onset. And his valuable collection of firearms, acquired over a lifetime of expert scrutiny, has been handled like so much rubble by Federal agents who consider him guilty of the charges against him before he has been given a fair trial or investigation.
The US~Observer is incensed by this more than obvious false prosecution, and we are left wondering just how many other Hispanics are being abused and prosecuted on false and manufactured charges. How many others are being wrongfully denied bail while incarcerated in deplorable and inhumane prison cells?

Help us let others know what has happened to Velasco-Veyro. Be responsible and contact Lorne Dey at lorne@usobserver.com or at: 720-231-2038 if you have any information regarding Morehead, Lester or Velasco-Veyro’s co-defendants: Ramon Chavez Sr., Douglas Chavez, Tammie S. Chavez, Alejandro Arroyo-Campos (aka Alejandro Guzman-Campos), Carlos Cifuetes, Osbaldo Garcia-Garcia, Adam Howard, Ashley Mooney, Jordan Veal, Homero Rocha, or David G. Percival (aka “El Guero”).
Are you tired of the blatant injustice occurring in our legal system today? Are you opposed to racism? If you are, please contact Grissom by phone at: (913) 551-6730 or by email at barry.grissom@usdoj.gov and inform him that his assistant prosecutor, Morehead, is falsely prosecuting an exemplary, innocent American citizen and he needs to stop her.

Fast & Furious: Libyan Edition

by: Streiff
If you were a big fan of Operation Fast & Furious, that stroke of genius masterminded by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives which sought to ensnare Mexican drug lords in a violation of the law (think about that for a second) by letting them buy weapons in selected states in the American Southwest and use them to kill their opponents, innocent bystanders, and the occasional U.S. Border Patrol agent, you are going to love what the Obama administration has come up with in Syria.
The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials and Syrian figures. The shipments began streaming into the country over the past two weeks, along with separate deliveries by the State Department of vehicles and other gear — a flow of material that marks a major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria’s civil war.
The arms shipments, which are limited to light weapons and other munitions that can be tracked, began arriving in Syria at a moment of heightened tensions over threats by President Obama to order missile strikes to punish the regime of Bashar al-Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons in a deadly attack near Damascus last month.
The arms are being delivered as the United States is also shipping new types of nonlethal gear to rebels. That aid includes vehicles, sophisticated communications equipment and advanced combat medical kits.

Like so much else the administration attempts, their goals seem plausible if your IQ approaches room temperature of if you are an academic.

The latest effort to provide aid is aimed at supporting rebel fighters who are under the command of Gen. Salim Idriss, according to officials, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because part of the initiative is covert. Idriss is the commander of the Supreme Military Council, a faction of the disjointed armed opposition.
U.S. officials, speaking about the provision of nonlethal aid, said they are determined to increase the cohesion and structure of the rebel fighting units.
“This doesn’t only lead to a more effective force, but it increases its ability to hold coalition groups together,” said Mark S. Ward, the State Department’s senior adviser on assistance to Syria, who coordinates nonlethal aid to rebels from southern Turkey. “They see their leadership is having some impact.”

If you were a big fan of Operation Fast & Furious, that stroke of genius masterminded by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives which sought to ensnare Mexican drug lords in a violation of the law (think about that for a second) by letting them buy weapons in selected states in the American Southwest and use them to kill their opponents, innocent bystanders, and the occasional U.S. Border Patrol agent, you are going to love what the Obama administration has come up with in Syria.

The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials and Syrian figures. The shipments began streaming into the country over the past two weeks, along with separate deliveries by the State Department of vehicles and other gear — a flow of material that marks a major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria’s civil war.
The arms shipments, which are limited to light weapons and other munitions that can be tracked, began arriving in Syria at a moment of heightened tensions over threats by President Obama to order missile strikes to punish the regime of Bashar al-Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons in a deadly attack near Damascus last month.
The arms are being delivered as the United States is also shipping new types of nonlethal gear to rebels. That aid includes vehicles, sophisticated communications equipment and advanced combat medical kits.

Like so much else the administration attempts, their goals seem plausible if your IQ approaches room temperature of if you are an academic.

The latest effort to provide aid is aimed at supporting rebel fighters who are under the command of Gen. Salim Idriss, according to officials, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because part of the initiative is covert. Idriss is the commander of the Supreme Military Council, a faction of the disjointed armed opposition.
U.S. officials, speaking about the provision of nonlethal aid, said they are determined to increase the cohesion and structure of the rebel fighting units.
“This doesn’t only lead to a more effective force, but it increases its ability to hold coalition groups together,” said Mark S. Ward, the State Department’s senior adviser on assistance to Syria, who coordinates nonlethal aid to rebels from southern Turkey. “They see their leadership is having some impact.”

So the scheme is to arm and supply the Syrian resistance nominally under the command of General Salim Idriss of the Free Syria Army. Clearly they intend that the FSA will supply other groups of fighters with weapons and non-lethal aid to enable the FSA to establish leadership over those groups.
Where this plan breaks down is on three fronts.
The first is the administration’s favorite fiction that General Idriss’s Free Syria Army is actually calling the shots. It isn’t.

A semi-exception to the rule is the General Staff of Brig. Gen. Salim Idriss, which is the most recent attempt to create a mainstream Western/Gulf-backed military leadership. Call it FSA if you want to.
The General Staff has received a formal pledge of allegiance from many commanders who themselves have a substantial personal following. Examples include Ahmed el-Sheikh of the Suqour el-Sham salafi group in Idleb, and his local partner-cum-rival Jamal Maarouf of the Shuhada Souriya faction. If all the factions which have declared in favor of Idriss were added up, they’d count at least 50,000 men, perhaps many more. But in reality, of course, they only follow their own leaders, and won’t take orders from Idriss. The elaborate command structure which has been released by the General Staff is a figment of the imagination, intended to create the impression of a unified organization that isn’t there.
Still, no matter how shallow and ephemeral their allegiance to Brig. Gen. Idriss may be, no other opposition figure can point to a similar show of support from the armed movement inside Syria. The reason for this widespread endorsement of Brig. Gen. Idriss isn’t his personal charm, good looks or presumed brilliance as a military strategist – it’s a lot simpler than that. See, there was an immediate payoff for attending the Antalya conference and pledging allegiance to Brig. Gen. Idriss and his General Staff: You got guns.

Idriss and the FSA, or whatever they are calling it this week, are seen as a pass-through for Western weapons and aid. If the momentum effectively shift to the rebels the leadership will devolve upon one of the groups actually fighting inside Syria.
The second issue that makes the gunrunning to Syria problematic is that if the operation works as intended most of the weapons and non-lethal aid will end up with the most effective fighting force: the al-Nusra Front.
What makes the al-Nusra Front unique is that it is listed by the U.S State Department as an al-Qaeda front organization.
Legally, the U.S. government can’t supply al-Nusra with weapons for a lot of really good reasons, mostly because they would be used to kill Americans. Lest you think this is some kind of a paperwork exercise, it isn’t. On August 8, two men were arraigned in federal court for helping al-Nusra obtain material support:

The fifteen-count indictment charges Gufran Ahmed Kauser Mohammed, 30, a naturalized United States citizen and resident of Dammam, Saudi Arabia, and Mohamed Hussein Said, 25, a Kenyan national and resident of Nairobi and Mombasa, with conspiring to provide, and attempting to provide, material support to three separately designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, al-Qa’ida, al-Qa’ida in Iraq/al-Nusrah Front (“AQI/al-Nusrah Front”), and al-Shabaab. If convicted, each defendant faces a possible statutory maximum sentence of up to 15 years in prison for each count of the Indictment.

The indictment alleges that Mohammed and Said conspired to provide money and recruits to al-Qa’ida, AQI/al-Nusrah Front in Syria and al-Shabaab in Somalia. The charges allege that Mohammed sent a series of wire transfers to Said for the purpose of supporting al-Shabaab, and to an individual whom he believed was a fundraiser, recruiter, and supplier for al-Qa’ida and AQI/al-Nusrah Front for the purpose of supporting al-Qa’ida and AQI/al-Nusrah Front. In addition, Mohammed and Said agreed to support al-Qa’ida and AQI/al-Nusrah Front by recruiting and moving experienced al-Shabaab fighters to the conflict in Syria.

What the administration is doing is quite simple. They are arming and supplying the most effective rebel group in Syria. That the group is al-Qaeda and a terrorist group simply doesn’t matter. But they know they can’t provide weapons to them directly. So what they are doing is providing General Idriss’s group with weapons knowing they will distribute them to al-Nusra. They are certainly doing it without any effective way of verifying that weapons are not going to al-Nusra other than Idriss’s word. And given that virtually all Syrian rebel factions have condemned the U.S. labeling of al-Nusra as a terrorist group speaks volumes both to their own ideology and to the odds that they will not transfer weapons to them:

A total of 29 opposition groups, including fighting “brigades” and civilian committees, have signed a petition calling for mass demonstrations in support of Jabhat al-Nusra, an Islamist group which the White House believes is an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The petition is promoting the slogan “No to American intervention, for we are all Jabhat al-Nusra” and urges supporters to “raise the Jabhat al-Nusra flag” as a “thank you”.
“These are the men for the people of Syria, these are the heroes who belong to us in religion, in blood and in revolution,” read a statement widely circulated on Syrian opposition Facebook pages.

But don’t worry. It is all under control:

In addition to boosting support for rebels under the command of Idriss, who speaks fluent English and taught at a military academy before defecting from the Syrian army last year, U.S. officials in southern Turkey are using aid to promote emerging moderate leaders in towns and villages in rebel-held areas. Across much of the north, Syrians have begun electing local councils and attempting to rebuild communities devastated by war.
Ward’s team — working primarily out of hotel lobbies [my italics -- WTF? working primarily out of hotel lobbies? WTF?] — has spent the past few months studying the demographics and dynamics of communities where extremists are making inroads. Targeted U.S. aid, he said, can be used to empower emerging local leaders who are moderate and to jump-start basic services while dimming the appeal of extremists.
To review the bidding, we are giving weapons to a group which has only modest influence and even more modest presence in Syria. We are hoping that they use those arms to gain influence with other groups. Those other groups are largely jihadis and the most effective one is an al-Qaeda front group. The people we’re giving weapons to were torqued that we labeled said front group as a terrorist organization. But they’ve promised they won’t give them any of our weapons.
“We feel we’re able to get these local councils off to a good start,” said Ward, a veteran U.S. Agency for International Development official who has worked in Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan. “We vet individuals who are getting our assistance to make sure they are not affiliated with terror organizations.”

Well, so long as they are vetted, I suppose that’s okay. I mean what could go wrong?