Jim Garrison - Martial Law by Executive Order

President Obama's National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order of March 16 does to the country as a whole what the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act did to the Constitution in particular -- completely eviscerates any due process or judicial oversight for any action by the Government deemed in the interest of "national security." Like the NDAA, the new Executive Order puts the government completely above the law, which, in a democracy, is never supposed to happen. The United States is essentially now under martial law without the exigencies of a national emergency.

Even as the 2012 NDAA was rooted in the Patriot Act and the various executive orders and Congressional bills that ensued to broaden executive power in the "war on terror," so the new Executive Order is rooted in the Defense Production Act of 1950 which gave the Government powers to mobilize national resources in the event of national emergencies, except now virtually every aspect of American life falls under ultimate unchallengeable government control, to be exercised by the president and his secretaries at their discretion.

Read More:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-garrison/martial-law-under-another_b_1370819.html?utm_source=Update+from+Jim+Garrison&utm_campaign=Reminder+re+Mar+2012+Chartres+Call&utm_medium=email

Roberta Seldon - Climate Change Denial is About Maintaining Control of the Wealth

Last month, Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) told Fox News Radio's Alan Colmes that "the bureaucratic dream is to control carbon," he said in reference to the notion that global warming is merely a hoax. Liberals want government to control our lives, and "if you control carbon, you control life," he added.

Well, Inhofe was certainly right about one thing -- the debate over global warming/climate change is about control; but not government control. It's about the 1 percent maintaining control over the country's wealth.

According to KCET -- the nation's largest independent public television station -- Inhofe and two other senators known for their stance against addressing climate change "received a large chunk of their campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry."

Read More:

http://securityandsustainabilityforum.org/climate-change-denial-is-about-maintaining-control-of-the-wealth

Whistleblower: BP Oil Platform Faces 'Present and Imminent Danger'

A whistleblower who has a standing lawsuit against BP has argued this week that the company's Atlantis Project, located 150 miles south of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico, faces "present and imminent danger."

The whistleblower, Kenneth Abbott, is a former BP contractor on the Atlantis. His lawsuit says that BP failed to keep required records of the safety systems for the Atlantis.

Back in 2010, Food & Water Watch, which joined Abbott's lawsuit, warned that the massive Deepwater Horizon oil disaster foreshadowed another Gulf of Mexico disaster caused by BP's Atlantis platform. At that time, Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch, said, “We have evidence that Atlantis is unsafe and is in danger of creating an even worse spill than the one caused by the Deepwater Horizon explosion.”

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/03/17-1

Les Leopold - A Single Hedge-Fund Hustler Makes More Than 85,000 Teachers: Why Are Our Priorities So Messed Up?

Why is America’s distribution of income so colossally obscene? You have only to look atForbes' most recent listing of the top 40 hedge fund moguls who sit on top of our income pyramid. Together, their personal income from hedge fund hustling was $12.8 billion in 2011. The top hedge fund guru, Raymond Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, hauled in $3 billion all for himself, which comes to a whopping $1,442,308 an HOUR, (assuming he worked 40 hours a week for 52 weeks).

It would take the typical U.S. family 29.2 YEARS to earn as much as Mr. Dalio earned in one HOUR.

How much is $3 billion per year?

1. That’s as much as 60,673 typical U.S. families earn: Just think about that for a moment. One person earns as much as 60,000 hard-working, middle-class families.

2. That’s enough to hire 85,911 entry level teachers: While we’re laying off teachers right and left to close budgets that were destroyed by the Wall Street crash, Wall Street’s top hedge fund manager earns as much in one year as tens of thousands of entry level teachers who on average earn $34,920 a year. That what we get for failing to rein in Wall Street.

Read More:

http://www.alternet.org/story/154671/a_single_hedge-fund_hustler_makes_more_than_85%2C000_teachers%3A_why_are_our_priorities_so_messed_up

Effective World Government Will Be Needed to Stave Off Climate Catastrophe

Almost six years ago, I was the editor of a single-topic issue on energy for Scientific American that included an article by Princeton University’s Robert Socolow that set out a well-reasoned plan for how to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations below a planet-livable threshold of 560 ppm. The issue came replete with technical solutions that ranged from a hydrogen economy to space-based solar.

If I had it to do over, I’d approach the issue planning differently, my fellow editors permitting. I would scale back on the nuclear fusion and clean coal, instead devoting at least half of the available space for feature articles on psychology, sociology, economics and political science. Since doing that issue, I’ve come to the conclusion that the technical details are the easy part. It’s the social engineering that’s the killer. Moon shots and Manhattan Projects are child’s play compared to needed changes in the way we behave.

A policy article authored by several dozen scientists appeared online March 15 in Science to acknowledge this point: “Human societies must now change course and steer away from critical tipping points in the Earth system that might lead to rapid and irreversible change. This requires fundamental reorientation and restructuring of national and international institutions toward more effective Earth system governance and planetary stewardship.”

Read More:

http://crisisboom.com/2012/03/22/effective-world-government-will-be-needed-to-stave-off-climate-catastrophe/

Danny Schechter - Is ‘Going Left’ Right for OWS?

For years, in the last century, when I was in school and learning about the early days of journalism, we were taught that author Horace Greeley who founded the New York Herald Tribune, was famous for saying, “Go West Young Man And Grow Up With The Country.”

One problem, as we learned recently, he didn’t coin the phrase but only popularized it. (Another media mistake involving a top dog in the media!) Indiana newspaper writer John Soule actually gave the advice in 1851, and it would serve as the mantra for 19th century “action” in the form of Westward migration.

These days, the men and women who won their struggle stripes in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements have a new mantra for action. Some who recently appeared at New York’s annual Left Forum, were sharing it with younger people, “Go Left.”

Read More:

http://consortiumnews.com/2012/03/21/is-going-left-right-for-ows/

Mijin Cha - Obama Picks Sides on Tar Sands: TransCanada Wins. Earth, Everyone Else Loses

A lesson in how not to reduce gas prices: the White House is backing TransCanada’s bid to build the southern portion of the controversial pipeline Keystone XL pipeline. The section to be built will run from Cushing, Oklahoma to Texas and carry crude oil pumped in the Midwest to refineries in Texas and be completed by late 2013—so it will have virtually no impact on the current high gas prices

Nor is there any evidence that it will have any impact on future gas prices. As we’ve highlighted continually, there is no guarantee that any of this refined oil will stay in the U.S. In fact, most likely, Keystone will be an export pipeline that will send oil to whoever pays the most for it, like India or China. Building the southern part of it certainly sets the stage for the full pipeline to be built. TransCanada says it will reapply for the cross-border permit soon and the decision to reapply has been welcomed by the White House.

President Obama’s move may be an attempt to fight back against Republican criticism but in doing so, he is sending a signal to environmentalist that despite his rhetoric on clean energy, it really is business as usual and dirty fossil fuels will continue to receive support and preference. On the issue of Keystone, there is no middle ground. The negative environmental and economic consequences outweigh any gains. The construction of the pipeline will not create permanent jobs. The portions already built have spilled tens of thousands of gallons of oil. Tar sands spills on the Kalamazoo River cost over $700 million to clean up, not to mention the impact on residents’ health and the local economy.

Read More:

http://www.policyshop.net/home/2012/3/21/white-house-picks-sides-in-keystone-xl-and-transcanada-is-th.html

Surviving the cashless cataclysm

In Sweden, just 3% of the economy is powered by coins and paper money. Public buses don’t accept cash, churches have installed card readers to take donations, and there are even some bank branches that refuse to take your money, opting instead to deal with electronic transfers only.

The European average is 9%, and in the US, the credit card motherland, the percentage is still more than twice that of Sweden: 7%. If you stop and think about it, though, none of these figures are particularly surprising. With the rise of credit cards and store cards (and card readers everywhere), PayPal, online shopping, iTunes, Netflix, and app stores, cash is feeling more outmoded by the day. When was the last time you used an ATM, anyway?

The trend is very clear: Cash is on its way out. It might take another 10 or 20 years for Sweden to get there, and longer for the US and other economies, but eventually so few businesses will accept cash that it will be relegated to jangling jars and cruddy sofa crevices. Governments will have no choice but to halt the fresh minting of coins and printing of bills, and eventually non-electronic money will dry up all together.

Read More:

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/122819-surviving-the-cashless-cataclysm

[VIDEO] ''HIV/AIDS'' Social Worker Shares Scepticism Re: African ''AIDS'' and E.U. Hetero ''HIV Epidemic''

No vaccine, no safe treatment, no cure, no questions after 30 years ! Isn't something awry? In House of Numbers: Anatomy of an Epidemic, an AIDS film like no other, the HIV/AIDS story is being rewritten. This is the first film to present the uncensored POVs of virtually all the major players; in their own settings, in their own words. It rocks the foundation upon which all conventional wisdom regarding 'HIV/AIDS' is based.

 Watch Here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p-ttLfkZHQ

Mark Potok - The Anti-Government 'Patriot' Movement Is Exploding in Size and Reach

The radical right grew explosively in 2011, the third such dramatic expansion in as many years. The growth was fueled by superheated fears generated by economic dislocation, a proliferation of demonizing conspiracy theories, the changing racial makeup of America, and the prospect of four more years under a black president who many on the far right view as an enemy to their country.

The number of hate groups counted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) last year reached a total of 1,018, up slightly from the year before but continuing a trend of significant growth that is now more than a decade old. The truly stunning growth came in the antigovernment “Patriot” movement — conspiracy-minded groups that see the federal government as their primary enemy.

The Patriot movement first emerged in 1994, a response to what was seen as violent government repression of dissident groups at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and near Waco, Texas, in 1993, along with anger at gun control and the Democratic Clinton Administration in general. It peaked in 1996, a year after the Oklahoma City bombing, with 858 groups, then began to fade. By the turn of the millennium, the Patriot movement was reduced to fewer than 150 relatively inactive groups.

Read More:

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report