SOROS REMAKES AMERICA INTO NARCO NATION

By Cliff Kincaid -  December 7, 2012  -  NewsWithViews.com – h/t to Liana Smith

As more states embrace legalization of marijuana—a pet cause of George Soros for decades—the British publication The Independent has published a groundbreaking series of articles by journalist Patrick Cockburn on how his son went insane smoking the drug.

Cockburn and his son Henry, who was treated for psychosis and partially recovered, have written an article in which Patrick Cockburn is quoted as saying his son played Russian roulette with cannabis “and lost.”

Henry, who smoked marijuana daily for seven years and was in mental hospitals for about eight years as a result, says, “When I reached a mental hospital, called St Martin’s, I spent three hours walking around the lunch tables trying to listen to my shoes. I thought my shoes were talking to me.”

Patrick Cockburn spent months speaking to the experts in the field and reports on the substantial evidence linking sustained marijuana use with mental illness. One expert, Sir William Paton, professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, reveals “that even limited social use of cannabis could precipitate schizophrenia in people who previously had no psychological problems,” and noted that “smoking a single joint could induce schizophrenia-like symptoms such as hallucinations, paranoia and fragmented thought processes.”

“Three-quarters of consumers may take cannabis with no ill effect but the remaining quarter, the genetically vulnerable, play Russian roulette,” Cockburn says.

The added significance of the series of articles by Patrick Cockburn is that he is a left-wing media figure—the son of Marxist author Claud Cockburn—and might be predisposed to believe that marijuana is, as the liberal media constantly tell us, a relatively harmless drug or a substance with “medical” qualities. But he knows the harm it causes firsthand through what it did to his son.

AIM noted back in 2004, in a special report on George Soros, the main financier behind the drug legalization movement, that although marijuana is depicted by the media as a “soft” drug, it has “extremely negative consequences.” The book, Marijuana and Madness, cites studies and evidence from around the world, some of it going back 40 years, linking the use of marijuana to mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and psychosis.

In a previous article for the left-wing publication Counterpunch, Patrick Cockburn took issue with a report from the Global Commission on Drug Policy which played down the dangers associated with marijuana. “They fail to make clear that for people genetically susceptible to psychosis the risks involved in taking cannabis may be lethally high,” he noted. “Cigarettes and alcohol, whatever harm they cause, do not, at a young age, send you mad.”

The Global Commission on Drug Policy is funded by the Open Society Institute of George Soros.

In this country, the case of Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell stands out as a case study of the harmful effects of the drug. Bedell, who shot and wounded two guards at the Pentagon in March of 2010, was a psychotic pothead who hated a government that he believed was standing in the way of his desire to use, grow and glorify marijuana. He virtually worshipped the drug. “I’m a cannabis enthusiast,” he proclaimed.

John Podesta, head of the Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP), had suggested on ABC News that the taxing and legalization of marijuana on a national basis could be a way to pay for Obama’s health care plan.

“The pro-cannabis lobby says that the so-called ‘war on drugs’ has failed and legalization or regulation should be tried, though critics argue that no government would ever license a drug that sends at least two percent of its consumers insane,” Cockburn reports.

In the first of Cockburn’s articles, “Is this the ‘tobacco moment’ for cannabis?,” the veteran foreign correspondent suggests a connection between marijuana use and psychotic episodes that is comparable to the scientific recognition that tobacco smoking causes lung cancer and other illnesses.

In addition to the dangers of mental illness, Cockburn notes that a major study finds a drop in intelligence associated with heavy marijuana use.

Cockburn’s articles on the link between marijuana and mental illness become increasingly relevant as the public in the U.S. comes to grips with the fact that voters in the states of Washington and Colorado on November 6 passed ballot measures legalizing marijuana, in violation of federal law. Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette has introduced federal legalization that would amend the Controlled Substances Act to assert that federal law does not preempt state laws.

In response, a group called Save Our Society From Drugs, has said, “Many concerned citizens, community groups, law enforcement agencies and elected officials are concerned how these laws will impact their communities, states and the nation, and are urging the Obama Administration to take action by clearly communicating and enforcing federal drug policies.”

The group added, “Keeping marijuana illegal is a treaty obligation under the 1961 International Convention on Narcotic Drugs and is supported by the two other Conventions: the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Drugs and the 1988 Anti-Trafficking Convention. Allowing state marijuana laws to supersede federal drug laws violates our treaty obligations.”

It said, “Marijuana legalization will significantly impact our environment, school scores and drop-out rates, accident and vehicle fatality rates, employee productivity, and healthcare and treatment costs.”

But the Soros-funded Drug Policy Alliance is rallying behind the DeGette bill, saying it would “end federal marijuana prohibition and allow states to set their own marijuana policy without federal interference.”

Cliff Kincaid

Technorati Tags: destroying America,drug use,drungs,George Soros,John Podesta,leglaization of marijuana,stand-up America,wake-up America,watch the other hand,Cliff Kincaid

Insurgency in America? Former Border Agent Details National Security Threats Spilling Into the U.S.

Former Border Patrol Agent Zachary Taylor told The Blaze just how grave the threat really is.

Taylor broke down the imminent dangers and expanded upon the case that the U.S.-Mexico border has become the soft underbelly of U.S homeland defense.

It’s not just an immigration problem, Taylor insisted, but also a major national security vulnerability.

A former US Border Patrol Agent himself, Taylor says all these threat have been exacerbated by current Obama administration policies and deliberate distortions in much of the media.

To understand the scope of the problem, Taylor first wants the public to recognize that the dominant media narrative is intentionally false. As a former and longtime Border Patrol Agent, Taylor balked at the notion that illegal immigration is simply a function of people seeking a better life.

He feels there’s a lot of nefarious activity that goes unaddressed, and said “The main problem is that the American press is working in conjunction with the administration to keep the facts about what is happening in Mexico and Central America a secret. They are hiding it in plain sight, deception I would call it.”

Taylor continued “Our institutions have been corrupted, the 4th estate has been corrupted. It is a tool of disinformation… A psychological warfare operation being waged against the American people using things to deflect their attention.”

According to Taylor, many of the people coming across the border are entering America illegally with the intention of doing real harm. They are coming with drugs, guns and inflicting violence, or are part of elaborate human smuggling networks with direct ties to the vast criminal cartels. The appeals to human compassion and “America is a nation of immigrants” meme ignores this very real and growing threat to the United States.

Which brought our discussion to the vicious and powerful Mexican drug cartels.

Taylor made it clear that there is no level of violent depravity or government corruption outside the ability of the cartels. The Sinaloa, the Zetas, and others narco-insurgents are engaged in beheadings, mutilations, sexual assaults, and videotaped torture campaigns similar to what most people associate with Al Qaeda.

“I have never seen this level of terrorist messaging” Taylor said, referencing the brazen brutality of the criminal syndicates. Taylor provided The Blaze with slideshows that depict unspeakable cruelty– true evil– that has become the calling card of the cartels. Vans full of headless and dismembered bodies, human carcasses strewn about the side of a desert road— all of it intended to strike terror in the hearts of Americans as well as Mexicans.

Taylor believes the cartel campaigns are not limited to the nuts and bolts of the drug trade. He told The Blaze that he feels the cartels want to have a hand in Mexican national elections and hope to help bring about a sympathetic leftist government to power.

The approximately 45,000 casualties of the drug war so far have been largely a response to Mexican President Calderon’s attempts to crack down on the cartels. If the drug barons were able to help install a leftist, anti-American government that would turn a blind eye to the drug trade, it would be a huge victory for the narco-traffickers. And a huge problem for the United States.

“Mexico has an insurgency on its hands– that is exactly what the problem is— and america will have the same problem as it makes it easier to get across the border,” Taylor said.

But Taylor brought some outside elements into his analysis. He stated that drug cartel activity and terrorist activity are both transnational in nature, which means groups from around the world have become involved.

In this case, that means the Shia militant group Hezbollah

Taylor said that Hezbollah is allying with the drug and alien smuggling operations at the border to help finance their operations in the Middle East. And in the event of hostilities with Hezbollah’s benefactor– Iran– Taylor is concerned that the cartel smuggling networks could help make America’s WMD nightmare come true.

“Get them close enough and effective enough, they [Hezbollah] could smuggle a Weapon of Mass Destruction into the United States.”

For those who would say the threat of a WMD smuggled into the U.S. is hyped or remote, Taylor points to a YouTube video from 2009 in which Muslim cleric Abdullah al-Nafisi talked about bringing 4 lbs of anthrax into the U.S. that he gleefully claimed would kill 330,000 people. It’s still available for anyone to see on YouTube, as shown below courtesy of MEMRI.TV:

Video: Abdullah Al-Nafisi - A biological attack on USA

Faced with all these threats, the federal government has refused to send enough resources in Taylor’s view. On the contrary, Taylor believes the Obama administration is engaged in efforts to bureaucratically subvert border security for political gain.

When the subject turned to the brave efforts of our border agents, Taylor painted a picture of an undermanned, outgunned, and bureaucratically hobbled federal Border Patrol force. He shared a number of disheartening anecdotes and cases that showed U.S. border efforts are not only insufficient– decisions are being made at the top of the federal government to make border enforcement more difficult.

Those policy decisions can and do have lethal consequences. In the infamous killing of former Marine and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, operational guidelines ordered that non-lethal force was the preferred first option of defense. This ignored the fact that there had already been several attempts to shoot Border Patrol agents in the same area with high-powered rifles.

In 2009, almost exactly one year before Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed by border bandits, another group of BP officers were on ATVs near ramanote canyon in Arizona. Armed smugglers opened fire on the agents, wounding one agent in the ankle/foot area, but the other agent was able to withdraw.

The smugglers, however, did not retreat, despite the fact that other border patrol agents came into the area to assists. Taylor said “not only will they [bandits] open fire on Border Patrol, they will advance on them in an attack.”

A helicopter arrived on the scene, according to Taylor, but shockingly, the helo crews were prohibited from exfiltrating the wounded agent. Instead, the Border Patrol brought in a horse to carry the agent out of the area to a waiting helicopter because of DHS protocol for the area.

It took 4 1/2 hours from the time of the engagement until the medical evacuation was completed. This was all due, as Taylor put it, to DHS policy with no basis in anything other than slowing down enforcement efforts and endangering Border agents.

Taylor also said the Department of Homeland Security did away with CAS (Close Air Support) helicopters in December 2011 even though light observation helicopters with a FLEER-mounted surveillance system “almost guarantees you will catch your quarry.”

Taylor doesn’t mince words about this. He believes the removal of the choppers is an attempt to intentionally hamper the effectiveness of border operations.

The federal government is ”killing the operation through policy and how they deploy assets… it’s about spending money and making the show, not about effectiveness.”

Currently, there are even federal agency turf wars making enforcement more difficult. Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to enter or pursue on federal wildlife refuges without permission. As some of these preserves– which fall under the Department of the Interior– can stretch for nearly a hundred miles from the border, they are basically a smuggler’s paradise.

There is a House of Representative Bill that would give agents unfettered access to anywhere within 100 miles of the border, but the mere fact that this legislation is needed speaks volumes about the present state of border security, as Taylor put it.

There can also be clear politics at play in how Border Patrol cases are handed. Agent Jesus Diaz was found not guilty of excessive force by two different internal review boards, but the US Attorney’s Office interceded and successfully prosecuted the agent.

Taylor said that the federal court did not all any background into the trial of Agent Diaz, and the words of four inexperience agents who allegedly failed to follow standard operating procedures were used against him in court. Apparently, the inexperienced agents caught part of a drug smuggling group– the leader of which was only 15 years old, and failed to secure the suspects.

When Diaz arrived, there were still armed drug smugglers in the brush nearby but the agents had not yet handcuffed the ones in custody. Diaz claimed he took over, handcuffed the suspects, and during the interrogation to find out about other armed criminal nearby, lifted the handcuffs of at least one suspect.

For this offense, Diaz was charged with excessive force and faces federal prison time. In addition, Taylor said it has come to light that all four of the rookie border patrol agents who testified against Diaz have since washed out of the agency.

As if the southern border were not enough, there are problems at the northern U.S. border as well. Taylor claims that the Obama Administration is intentionally making it easier to illegally cross the northern border through bureaucratic inefficiency. The National Forest Service does not allow unfettered access to Border Agents, and DHS is ceasing many transportation checkpoint along the border with Canada.

For Taylor, all of this adds up to a situation that gravely threatens U.S. national security and endangers Americans.

Asked how this state of affairs could continue, or even be allowed to worse, Taylor summarized his case bluntly.

“This administration is trying to facilitate the entry of illegal aliens into the United States.”

The Blaze

Photos were shown on a GBTV special that they will not re-printed on the Blaze or anywhere else because of the horrific nature of the images.  Photos included picturess of the rape tree, murders, beheadings, dismemberings, a cooler filled with heads floating in blood, skinned bodies and heads (often skinned while the people are still alive) hanging from poles, etc. …

What we must ask ourselves is… If one crazy person, like a Hannibal Lector type serial killer, was doing this in our country…  we would be organizing a huge unrelenting man-hunt, so why is our government hiding this information, classifying the documents of the same type of events happening on the U.S. side or the border, and blocking the news coverage?  Why was the DOJ involved in Fast and Furious… with knowledge (and no-doubt approval) up to the Attorney Holder and even the White House.

This lack of action and cover-ups goes back to the Bush Administration but has gotten much much worse under the present administration.

The disgusting mishandled Fast and Furious Gun Running Program that Eric Holder has created a circus over by withholding facts and paperwork from the Congress and special investigation committee feeds into the lies and cover-up being enacted by the U.S. Government against the American and Mexican people.

Facts:

Extreme violence, drug cartels, human trafficking, and terrorism is being enacted in on the U.S.-Mexican border.

Hezbollah and Hamas are using the Mexican border as a staging area.

Enemies are coming across the Mexican Border in Droves.  59,000 OTM’s have been captured… We only capture about 1 out of 10 or less of those who cross.  Islamic prayer rugs have been found as well as manuals on terrorism.

Fires are being deliberately set on the border… believed as diversions or cover-ups.  One of the large ones was set where the Fast and Furious conspiracies was enacted.

The Northern border is even more accessible than the Southern Border; nobody is watching it and they plan to pull the few agents they have there off… yet how easy would it be for an Islamic Terrorist to enter from Canada into Michigan and blend in to the huge Muslim population in that state?

Zach Taylor, Head of the Association of Former Border Agents, is risking his life to get this information out because it is crucial to the future of America.  He said be wary of any candidate who talks about amnesty (no matter what they call it) and social justice. (The two toughest candidate for president on securing the border are Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum).

Glenn Beck said, “Do what you want with this info, but when he worked at both CNN and FOX, they would not give him the resources to properly research and cover this for this TV programs.  Think about it…

Glenn asked Zach Taylor what Americans can do to help and get help for the border agents and themselves… since many law enforcement groups find their hands tied… and at the higher levels are part of the problem.  Taylor said that the problem and authority is with the administration, DHS and the DOJ, but the funding is with the legislature.  Get to the legislators and speak with your votes in November.  We need change in the White House and 90% of the people in Congress need to be changed!

John Boehner to halt Fast and Furious investigation, sell out to Eric Holder and White House  -  This is frightening!!

Congressman John Boehner, the House Speaker better known for displays of weeping than of courage, is reportedly cutting a deal with Eric Holder which would provide a “mutually satisfactory” outcome in Barack Obama’s criminal, gun running endeavor Operation Fast and Furious.

Months ago, Boehner prevented Darrell Issa filing a charge of perjury against Holder even after documents proved the Attorney General’s May 4th House testimony concerning the date of his first “acquaintance” with Fast and Furious to be an outright lie.

And now the weepy Speaker will OFFICIALLY let the most corrupt Department of Justice head in the nation’s history off the hook for complicity in the Regime’s murderous scheme to savage the 2nd Amendment rights of the American people.

The terms of the betrayal John Boehner is currently putting together:

The Committee will accept the scalps of [Lanny] Breuer and [Jason] Wienstein, DOJ will release enough of the (documents) to condemn them, claim cooperation (thus giving the appearance of recognizing congress’s oversight authority), and Holder will survive – looking like a “leader” for offering them up (along with a few lower level ATF and DOJ folk). The Committee will chalk one in the “Win” column for oversight and holding people accountable. DOJ will have the same for cooperating and accountability. (1)

Lovely, isn’t it! Hundreds are dead, including two American agents. One of those dead, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was literally set up for murder by an FBI INFORMANT who, on December 14th of 2010, accompanied and LED the drug cartel rip gang responsible for Terry’s death. The other victim, ICE Agent Jaime Zapata was NOT PERMITTED by LAW to even possess a weapon with which he might have defended himself from his killers!

Yet John Boehner will be pleased to sell them out in order to...  (Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...

*This should give you new respect for our border agents and people like Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona who are on the front lines.**

Agenda Behind Fast & Furious Gunrunner Program - NoisyRoom

By: AJ

While clear-thinking Americans can agree that Obama and Holder’s Justice Department made a fatal error in instituting “Operation Fast and Furious,” whereby thousands of weapons were knowingly placed in the hands of straw buyers who illegally crossed our southern border, few are asking why such a dangerous program was created.

There was a definite agenda and we need to go back to 2009, shortly after Obama was sworn in as President, to understand its origin.

At the start of the Obama regime, Obama and Hillary Clinton publicized that 90% of the guns used in crimes committed in Mexico came from the U.S. By April of 2009, FOX News had investigated this assertion and proved it was false. Only 17% – not 90% – of the weapons confiscated in Mexico were U.S. weapons.

Video on site...

Trafficking Guns to Mexico from – FOXNews com

Mainstream media did not report that Obama and Clinton’s claims were false and, instead, perpetuated the lie and the Obama administration moved forward with Operation Fast and Furious to make the lie a reality. To date, Obama has not been held to account for the false information he and his administration thrust forward for public consumption in 2009 and by the end of this article, you will see how this fits into a larger agenda with a purposeful outcome.

The Obama administration instituted their “bottom up” program – Fast and Furious. Their plan, aptly named, was designed to quickly and deliberately put as many U.S. weapons as possible into the hands of straw buyers who would bring them across the border into Mexico and into the hands of the drug cartels. This would ensure that when those weapons were retrieved and counted by Mexico’s law enforcement units, the numbers would then show a larger percentage of weapons coming from the U.S.

Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) has held congressional hearings on Fast and Furious and released redacted emails which described the following (emphasis added), as reported by Jordy Yager at The Hill:

“In one of the emails, released by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), with the subject heading “Director’s questions,” the supervisor of the “Fast and Furious” operation wrote to the assistant special agent in charge of Phoenix field operations with an Internet Protocol address for one of the video monitoring units in a gun store which was authorized to sell guns to the suspects.

The emails seem to indicate that ATF acting director Kenneth Melson had asked for this information. “With this information, acting Director Melson was able to sit at his desk in Washington and – himself – watch a live feed of the straw buyers entering the gun stores to purchase dozens of AK-47 variants,” said a Republican committee statement…

In another email dated March 10, 2010, the assistant special agent in charge of the Phoenix field operations wrote to the supervisor of the “Fast and Furious” operation and said, “Not sure if you know, but Mr. Melson and Mr. Hoover are being briefed weekly on this investigation and the recent success with [redacted] so they are both keenly interested in case updates.”

Prior to release of the emails, ATF’s letters to legislators denied that they were selling these weapons to straw buyers and in fact they “made every effort to prevent weapons from ending up in Mexico.”

However, the truth is documented (emphasis added) by Dave Workman at The Examiner, who has been reporting on this story for over four months since David Codrea (National Gun Rights Examiner) and Mike Vanderboegh (independent blogger) first uncovered the program:

“Operation Fast and Furious was an off-shoot of the larger Project Gunrunner, conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. This controversial operation allowed an estimated 2,000-2,500 guns to “walk” into Mexico as ATF field agents were repeatedly ordered to “stand down” by their supervisors.”

“ATF agents have shared chilling accounts of being ordered to stand down as criminals in Arizona walked away with guns headed for Mexican drug cartels. With the clinical precision of a lab experiment, the Justice Department kept records of weapons they let walk and the crime scenes where they next appeared. To agents’ shock, preventing loss of life was not the primary concern.” — Congressman Darrell Issa

“The Issa/Grassley report, The Department of Justice’s Operation Fast and Furious: Accounts of ATF Agents, contains some chilling revelations:

Highlights of the report include:

· The supervisor of Operation Fast and Furious was “jovial, if not giddy, but just delighted about” walked guns showing up at crime scenes in Mexico according to an ATF agent. (p. 37)

· Another ATF agent told the committee about a prediction he made a year ago that “someone was going to die” and that the gunwalking operation would be the subject of a Congressional investigation. (p. 24)

· The shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords created a “state of panic” within the group conducting the operation as they initially feared a “walked” gun might have been used. (p. 38)

· One Operation Fast and Furious Agent: “I cannot see anyone who has one iota of concern for human life being okay with this …” (p. 27)

· An ATF agent predicted to committee investigators that more deaths will occur as a result of Operation Fast and Furious. (p.39)

· Multiple agents told the committee that continued assertions by Department of Justice Officials that guns were not knowingly “walked” and that the DOJ tried to stop their transport to Mexico are clearly untruthful. (p. 45-50)”

Quick re-cap – Obama, Clinton and Holder deliberately instituted Operation Fast and Furious for the sole purpose of increasing the number of U.S. weapons that “walked” into Mexico. Remember some of the facts:

· ATF agents were repeatedly told to “stand down” as the guns “walked;”

· The supervisor of this operation was “jovial” and “just delighted” when “walked” guns appeared at crime scenes in Mexico;

· No one had “one iota of concern for human life;” and

· “Acting Director Melson was able to sit at his desk in Washington and – himself – watch a live feed of the straw buyers entering the gun stores to purchase dozens of AK-47 variants.”

Why did Obama, Clinton and Holder do this? It’s obvious to even the most casual observer; they did this to further the propaganda they pushed in early 2009 – that the U.S. has a gun problem because “90%” of the confiscated weapons in Mexico are coming from the U.S. – in order to justify more aggressive restrictions on gun ownership in the U.S.

Keep in mind that when the operation was created in 2009, the Obama administration had not anticipated that it would be exposed. The Democrats had a majority in both the House and Senate and any investigation would have had to have been brought forward by their own party – which Obama, Clinton and Holder knew would not happen. But there were several things they didn’t anticipate:

· Agent Brian Terry’s murder whereby two of the weapons found at the scene were tracked to straw purchasers who bought the weapons under ATF’s supervision via Operation Fast and Furious.

· David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh’s discovery of this operation.

· Democrats’ loss of their majority in the House, with Republicans taking over in January 2011.

· CBS coverage of this operation.

· David Workman’s exceptional and diligent reporting on this operation.

· Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) pursuit of the truth through Congressional Hearings.

Marxists will always tell you that the ends justify the means. Creating the very problem they can claim they’re prepared to solve isn’t a new tactic for Progressives, but this is only part of the story.

Congressman Issa will fail the American people if he stops short and fails to investigate and determine the true purpose of Operation Fast and Furious. To say that it was a dumb program and needs to stop will miss the true agenda behind the creation of the operation in the first place.

While the “bottom up” Operation Fast and Furious continued, so too has Obama’s “top down” operation – the United Nations (UN) Small Arms Treaty.

Did you know that the UN has an Office for Disarmament Affairs? Did you know the Obama administration has been working closely with the UN and firmly supports the UN Small Arms Treaty, which Obama and Clinton fully intend to thrust upon America?

As I reported on April 18, 2011 in the article “THE GLOBALISTS’ TAKEOVER OF AMERICA: Part 3 – WEAKEN MILITARY & CIVILIAN DEFENSE”…

“In addition, the globalists (including Obama and Hillary Clinton) intend to enact the Small Arms Treaty which will restrict gun ownership for American citizens under the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs. Harm our soldiers and disarm our citizens and America is ripe for attack and invasion on our own soil. Couple the Small Arms Treaty with the President’s Executive Order granting international police (INTERPOL) full immunity on American soil, along with the National Civilian Security Force that Obama has been creating, and the clear and present danger to America is obvious.

The danger to America is reinforced by Eric Holder’s DOJ secretly arming Mexico’s drug cartel to put American citizens at greater risk in border-states, and Obama arming radical Islamists in Libya to put American soldiers at greater risk under UN control in Libya.”

If the Obama administration’s agenda isn’t yet clear, despite the facts from emails, testimony, investigations, reports and the links in this article, add the fact that during the Operation Fast and Furious hearings, Mike Lillis at The Hill reported what ensued when ATF Special Agent, Peter Forcelli, stated the following (emphasis added):

“I think perhaps a mandatory minimum one-year sentence might deter an individual from buying a gun,” Forcelli said.

He was responding to a question from Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), who said the current penalties are so weak that they discourage state prosecutors from pursuing straw-purchase cases. Forcelli agreed the current penalties do little to intimidate straw purchasers.

That brief exchange prompted Issa to intervene.

“We’re not here to talk about proposed gun legislation,” Issa said…

Maloney defended her line of questioning, saying she was “trying to figure out why … prosecutors often decline these gun cases.”

Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the senior Democrat on the oversight panel, also questioned Issa’s authority to mute Forcelli.”

Then Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, reinforced the fact that it’s really about gun control when he said in a statement on Wednesday:

“It’s also critically important that we examine why our gun laws are so weak that they make trafficking so easy in the first place.”

No mention was made by the Democrat representatives or by Paul Helmke that the Obama administration is aiding and abetting the transfer of U.S. weapons into Mexico via a program they designed, implemented and oversaw – complete with “acting Director Melson who was able to sit at his desk in Washington and – himself – watch a live feed of the straw buyers entering the gun stores to purchase dozens of AK-47 variants,” and “ATF field agents were repeatedly ordered to “stand down” by their supervisors.”

The agenda behind Operation Fast and Furious is only one piece of a larger operation to diminish and ultimately extinguish the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans. The 2nd Amendment, as ratified by the States, reads:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Food for thought:

· “…to disarm the people – that was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” (George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 380)

· “No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.” (Thomas Jefferson, Proposal Virginia Constitution, 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334, [C.J.Boyd, Ed., 1950])

· “The whole of the Bill (of Rights) is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals…. It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.” (Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, October 7, 1789)

· “Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American… The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state government, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people” (Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788)

Source: NoisyRoom

Related:

Tip of the ‘Gunwalker’ Iceberg?  Are There MORE ‘Operations Fast and Furious’?

The Collapse of Mexico — Its Civil War Comes to America 

The bloody battle between ruthless Mexican drug cartels threatens to turn America's southern neighbor into a failed nation-state — and has spilled deep into U.S. territory, threatening American citizens as well.

The raging drug wars have claimed nearly 40,000 lives since 2006 in a civil nightmare of beheadings, mass graves, kidnappings, and endemic corruption at the highest levels of Mexican society, as cartels rake in an astronomical $12 billion a year in illicit revenue.

Newsmax magazine's eye-opening special report, "The Collapse of Mexico — Its Civil War Comes to America," delves into the people and politics along the treacherous border.

Newsmax spent two months conducting more than 20 interviews during visits to border areas in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, and found that despite the administration's reassurances, Mexico's drug cartels have penetrated deep into our nation's heartland, striking fear in ordinary Americans.

Frightening fact: Even the Government Accountability Office concedes that the United States can prevent or interrupt illegal entry along only 129 miles of our 1,954-mile southern border.

The new issue of Newsmax magazine is hot off the presses, and addresses our problems at the border.  FYI, for anyone who is interested: in this edition of Newsmax magazine and a subscription PLUS get a U.S. Border Patrol Cap worth $25 :  Go Here Now.  Just happen to receive this as I was sending out the article above.

Related:

Issa: Holder 'Absolutely' Knew About 'Fast & Furious' Earlier Than He Testified 

Rep. Issa Compares Holder Gun Running Scandal to 'Iran Contra' (VIDEO) 

ATF acting director may resign over Fast and Furious program 

Holder: Justice Department Has Re-Opened The "Civil Rights Division" (enforce in places of worship?)

Manipulating morals: scientists target drugs that improve behavior

Researchers say morality treatments could be used instead of prison and might even help humanity tackle global issues  -  Progress, Big Brother or just creepy…?

Existing drugs such as Prozac are already known to affect moral behaviour, but scientists predict that advances may allow more sophisticated manipulations. Photograph: Scott Camazine/Alamy

A pill to enhance moral behaviour, a treatment for racist thoughts, a therapy to increase your empathy for people in other countries - these may sound like the stuff of science fiction but with medicine getting closer to altering our moral state, society should be preparing for the consequences, according to a book that reviews scientific developments in the field.

Drugs such as Prozac that alter a patient's mental state already have an impact on moral behaviour, but scientists predict that future medical advances may allow much more sophisticated manipulations.

The field is in its infancy, but "it's very far from being science fiction", said Dr Guy Kahane, deputy director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and a Wellcome Trust biomedical ethics award winner.

"Science has ignored the question of moral improvement so far, but it is now becoming a big debate," he said. "There is already a growing body of research you can describe in these terms. Studies show that certain drugs affect the ways people respond to moral dilemmas by increasing their sense of empathy, group affiliation and by reducing aggression."

Researchers have become very interested in developing biomedical technologies capable of intervening in the biological processes that affect moral behaviour and moral thinking, according to Dr Tom Douglas, a Wellcome Trust research fellow at Oxford University's Uehiro Centre. "It is a very hot area of scientific study right now."

He is co-author of Enhancing Human Capacities, published on Monday, which includes a chapter on moral enhancement.

Drugs that affect our moral thinking and behaviour already exist, but we tend not to think of them in that way. [Prozac] lowers aggression and bitterness against environment and so could be said to make people more agreeable. Or Oxytocin, the so-called love hormone ... increases feelings of social bonding and empathy while reducing anxiety," he said.

"Scientists will develop more of these drugs and create new ways of taking drugs we already know about. We can already, for example, take prescribed doses of Oxytocin as a nasal spray," he said.

But would pharmacologically-induced altruism, for example, amount to genuine moral behaviour? Guy Kahane, deputy director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and a Wellcome Trust biomedical ethics award winner, said: "We can change people's emotional responses but quite whether that improves their moral behaviour is not something science can answer."

He also admitted that it was unlikely people would "rush to take a pill that would make them morally better.

"Becoming more trusting, nicer, less aggressive and less violent can make you more vulnerable to exploitation," he said. "On the other hand, it could improve your relationships or help your career."

Kahane does not advocate putting morality drugs in the water supply, but he suggests that if administered widely they might help humanity to tackle global issues.

"Relating to the plight of people on other side of the world or of future generations is not in our nature," he said. "This new body of drugs could make possible feelings of global affiliation and of abstract empathy for future generations."

Ruud ter Meulen, chair in ethics in medicine and director of the centre for ethics in medicine at the University of Bristol, warned that while some drugs can improve moral behaviour, other drugs - and sometimes the same ones - can have the opposite effect.

"While Oxytocin makes you more likely to trust and co-operate with others in your social group, it reduces empathy for those outside the group," Meulen said.

The use of deep brain stimulation, used to help those with Parkinson's disease, has had unintended consequences, leading to cases where patients begin stealing from shops and even becoming sexually aggressive, he added.

"Basic moral behaviour is to be helpful to others, feel responsible to others, have a sense of solidarity and sense of justice," he said. "I'm not sure that drugs can ever achieve this. But there's no question that they can make us more likeable, more social, less aggressive, more open attitude to other people," he said.

Meulen also suggested that moral-enhancement drugs might be used in the criminal justice system. "These drugs will be more effective in prevention and cure than prison," he said.

By Amelia Hill - guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 April 2011 16.23 BST  Cross-posted at True Health Is True Wealth

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Big Pharma and the FDA: Suppress the Science, Ban the Natural Substances, Sell the Drugs!

In 2005, an up-and-coming pharmaceutical company made a big mistake: they invested millions of dollars into developing a drug only to discover that the only active ingredient of the drug, pyridoxamine, was really a common, naturally occurring substance that has been sold for decades at low cost to consumers in the form of a dietary supplement, and has always been available in commonly consumed foods such as chicken and brewer’s yeast.

We’re taught as children that when you make a mistake, you should own up to it and face the consequences. Apparently the pharmaceutical company in question, Biostratum, Inc., has yet to learn that lesson. Instead of owning up to their mistake, Biostratum tried to game the system to their advantage by asking the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to declare supplements containing pyridoxamine “adulterated” and effectively ban anyone but Biostratum from selling pyridoxamine.

Sadly, Biostratum’s desparate ploy to save their investment worked. Earlier this year the FDA agreed to ban companies from selling pyridoxamine as a dietary supplement. They denied the request to declare products containing pyridoxamine “adulterated,” but instead they declared that such products are not dietary supplements at all—claiming they are excluded from the definition of dietary supplements under the “prior market clause” [21 U.S.C. 321(ff)(3)(B)(ii)] and so may not be marketed as such.

Please note that nowhere in the FDA’s response letter is anything said about safety concerns. In fact, the FDA’s letter specifically says that “to allow such an article to be marketed as a dietary supplement would not be fair to the pharmaceutical company that brought, or intends to bring, the drug to market.” Fair to the pharmaceutical companies? What about fairness to consumers, some of whom rely on affordable pyridozxamine supplements to provide the levels of vitamin B-6 required for their survival? Is it fair to force those consumers to pay for expensive prescription drugs and doctors’ visits to supply their B-6 needs when they could get the exact same thing for a fraction of the cost in the form of a supplement? Isn’t this why our health care system is so ineffective?

This is hardly the first time the FDA has attacked naturally occuring substances. On October 17, 2005, the FDA banned information about the health benefits of cherries from appearing on websites—scientifically proven benefits, such as tart cherries’ ability to reduce the risk of colon cancer because of the anthocyanins and cyanidin contained in the cherry. Cherries, according to the latest research, help ease the pain of arthritis and gout; reduce risk factors for heart disease and diabetes; help regulate the body’s natural sleep patterns, aid with jet lag, prevent memory loss, and delay the aging process; and helps lower body fat and cholesterol—risk factors associated with heart disease. Moreoever, Scientists at Johns Hopkins have found that tart cherry anthocyanins reduced painful inflammation as well as a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, indomethacin.

When the 2005 ban was instituted, the FDA sent warning letters to twenty-nine companies that market cherry products. In these letters, they ordered the companies to stop publicizing scientific data about cherries. According to the FDA, when cherry companies disseminate this peer-reviewed scientific information, the cherries become “unapproved new drugs” and are subject to seizure. The FDA warned that if those involved in “cherry trafficking” continue to inform consumers about these scientific studies, criminal prosecutions would ensue.

But fresh fruit and vegetables are not the FDA’s only target: As we reported in this newsletter recently, General Mills was recently issued a warning letter by the FDA for illegally marketing Cheerios Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal. The problem was the claim on the cereal box that Cheerios can lower cholesterol 4% in six weeks, and the statement on their website that “diets rich in whole grain foods can reduce the risk of heart disease.” The letter, dated May 5, 2009, called the above claims “serious violations” of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and applicable regulations.

FDA stated that based on the claims made, Cheerios is now an unapproved drug, and must go through FDA new drug approval process.Note that the FDA isn't disputing the claim. It's disputing the company's right to make the claim.

As one newspaper columnist humorously put it, “One of these things is not like the others: morphine, penicillin, aspirin, Cheerios. Most drugs, if taken improperly, will kill the consumer or cause substantial bodily harm. An entire bottle of aspirin at one sitting will harm or kill. If Cheerios is a drug, therefore, one should be able to commit suicide by consuming the entire box.”

For years, the FDA barred health claims about the benefits of fish oil for heart, cancer, depression, body pain, and various other conditions until a drug company paid a great deal of money to go through the approval process. This type of enforcement effectively censors scientific information and greatly restricts consumer access to scientific studies that provide valuable information.

In the case of pyridoxamine, the FDA did not act out of concern for public safety. This is about money, and about a profit-seeking corporation taking advantage of what is supposed to be a public health organization in order to save their skins.

Source: American Association for Health Freedom

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