They are getting the band back together.
In the well-burnished legend of its founding, the Tea Party movement sprang to life at grass-roots rallies, a spontaneous protest against government overreach that grew and grew until it stunned Democrats and many moderate Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections.
On Tuesday, rallies across the country to protest the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status recalled those glory days, drawing colourful crowds in three-cornered hats, with members singing patriotic songs and waving provocative signs like “Fire the Liars” and “I.R.S.S.” – the last two letters drawn like the lightning bolts of the Nazi SS.
Leaders of the Tea Party movement hope outrage over the IRS will rekindle grass-roots activism that in many places went dormant after big Republican electoral defeats of November 2012. They aim to link the current scandal to other government programs they consider overweening – principally the rollout of the health care overhaul law – and generate a Republican wave in the 2014 midterm elections reminiscent of 2010s.
A former insider at the World Bank, ex-Senior Counsel Karen Hudes, says the global financial system is dominated by a small group of corrupt, power-hungry figures centered around the privately owned U.S. Federal Reserve. The network has seized control of the media to cover up its crimes, too, she explained. In an interview with The New American, Hudes said that when she tried to blow the whistle on multiple problems at the World Bank, she was fired for her efforts. Now, along with a network of fellow whistleblowers, Hudes is determined to expose and end the corruption. And she is confident of success.
Citing an explosive 2011 Swiss study published in the PLOS ONE journal on the “network of global corporate control,” Hudes pointed out that a small group of entities — mostly financial institutions and especially central banks — exert a massive amount of influence over the international economy from behind the scenes. “What is really going on is that the world’s resources are being dominated by this group,” she explained, adding that the “corrupt power grabbers” have managed to dominate the media as well. “They’re being allowed to do it.”
According to the peer-reviewed paper, which presented the first global investigation of ownership architecture in the international economy, transnational corporations form a “giant bow-tie structure.” A large portion of control, meanwhile, “flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions.” The researchers described the core as an “economic ‘super-entity’” that raises important issues for policymakers and researchers. Of course, the implications are enormous for citizens as well.
Hudes, an attorney who spent some two decades working in the World Bank’s legal department, has observed the machinations of the network up close. “I realized we were now dealing with something known as state capture, which is where the institutions of government are co-opted by the group that’s corrupt,” she told The New American in a phone interview. “The pillars of the U.S. government — some of them — are dysfunctional because of state capture; this is a big story, this is a big cover up.”
At the heart of the network, Hudes said, are 147 financial institutions and central banks — especially the Federal Reserve, which was created by Congress but is owned by essentially a cartel of private banks. “This is a story about how the international financial system was secretly gamed, mostly by central banks — they’re the ones we are talking about,” she explained. “The central bankers have been gaming the system. I would say that this is a power grab.”
The Fed in particular is at the very center of the network and the coverup, Hudes continued, citing a policy and oversight body that includes top government and Fed officials. Central bankers have also been manipulating gold prices, she added, echoing widespread concerns that The New American has documented extensively. Indeed, even the inaccurate World Bank financial statements that Hudes has been trying to expose are linked to the U.S. central bank, she said.
“The group that we’re talking about from the Zurich study — that’s the Federal Reserve; it has some other pieces to it, but that’s the Federal Reserve,” Hudes explained. “So the Federal Reserve secretly dominated the world economy using secret, interlocking corporate directorates, and terrorizing anybody who managed to figure out that they were having any kind of role, and putting people in very important positions so that they could get a free pass.”
The shadowy but immensely powerful Bank for International Settlements serves as “the club of these private central bankers,” Hudes continued. “Now, are people going to want interest on their country’s debts to continue to be paid to that group when they find out the secret tricks that that group has been doing? Don’t forget how they’ve enriched themselves extraordinarily and how they’ve taken taxpayer money for the bailout.”
As far as intervening in the gold price, Hudes said it was an effort by the powerful network and its central banks to “hold onto its paper currency” — a suspicion shared by many analysts and even senior government officials. The World Bank whistleblower also said that contrary to official claims, she did not believe there was any gold being held in Fort Knox. Even congressmen and foreign governments have tried to find out if the precious metals were still there, but they met with little success. Hudes, however, believes the scam will eventually come undone.
“This is like crooks trying to figure out where they can go hide. It’s a mafia,” she said. “These culprits that have grabbed all this economic power have succeeded in infiltrating both sides of the issue, so you will find people who are supposedly trying to fight corruption who are just there to spread disinformation and as a placeholder to trip up anybody who manages to get their act together.… Those thugs think that if they can keep the world ignorant, they can bleed it longer.”
Of course, the major corruption at the highest levels of government and business is not a new phenomenon. Georgetown University historian and Professor Carroll Quigley, who served as President Bill Clinton’s mentor, for example, wrote about the scheme in his 1966 book Tragedy And Hope: A History Of The World In Our Time. The heavyweight academic, who was allowed to review documents belonging to the top echelons of the global establishment, even explained how the corrupt system would work — remarkably similar to what Hudes describes.
"The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole,” wrote Prof. Quigley, who agreed with the goals but not the secrecy. “This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations."
But it is not going to happen, Hudes said — at least not if she has something do to with it. While the media are dominated by the “power grabber” network, Hudes has been working with foreign governments, reporters, U.S. officials, state governments, and a broad coalition of fellow whistleblowers to blow the entire scam wide open. There has been quite a bit of interest, too, particularly among foreign governments and state officials in the United States.
Citing the wisdom of America’s Founding Fathers in creating a federal system of government with multiple layers of checks and balances, Hudes said she was confident that the network would eventually be exposed and subjected to the rule of law, stopping the secret corruption. If and when that happens — even if it may be disorderly — Hudes says precious metals will once again play a role in imposing discipline on the monetary system. The rule of law would also be restored, she said, and the public will demand a proper press to stay informed.
“We’re going to have a cleaned-up financial system, that’s where it is going, but in the meantime, people who didn’t know how the system was gamed are going to find out,” she said. “We’re going to have a different kind of international financial system.... It’ll be a new kind of world where people know what’s going on — no more backroom deals; that’s not going to keep happening. We’re going to have a different kind of media if people don’t want to be dominated and controlled, which I don’t think they do.”
While Hudes sounded upbeat, she recognizes that the world is facing serious danger right now — there are even plans in place to impose martial law in the United States, she said. The next steps will be critical for humanity. As such, Hudes argues, it is crucial that the people of the world find out about the lawlessness, corruption, and thievery that are going on at the highest levels — and put a stop to it once and for all. The consequences of inaction would be disastrous.
Republican US lawmakers are taking steps to bar the United States from sharing classified missile defense technology information with Russia, draft legislation that was amended in the US Congress Wednesday shows.
The lawmakers included language in the proposed Defense Authorization Bill, which was in the early stages of the legislative process in Congress on Wednesday, that would limit funding for the Department of Defense if it were to be used “to provide the Russian Federation with access to certain missile defense technology,” a copy of the draft bill that was seen by RIA Novosti shows.
The move to block missile defense data-sharing comes as Russian Federation Security Council Secretary Gen. Nikolai Patrushev held talks in Washington with US National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon and US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to discuss a range of issues, including missile defense.
Moscow has repeatedly sought assurances that a missile defense shield that the United States is establishing in Europe will not target Russian strategic nuclear forces.
The move to block the sharing of missile defense data with Russia could create an obstacle to arms control talks between Washington and Moscow.
The ultra-Orthodox organization Yad L'Achim has long been a thorn in the side of Israel's Messianic Jewish community. Sometimes more than a thorn - Jack Teitel, the Jewish terrorist who almost killed Messianic youth Ami Ortiz, is believed to have strong ties to the group.
Now Yad L'Achim is targeting a blossoming Messianic community in the coastal city of Bat Yam. The local edition of the Hebrew daily Yediot Ahronot reported earlier this month that Yad L'Achim had received many complaints from residents upset about receiving "missionary material."
According to the article, local Messianic believers had visited homes in the area to share their faith. Yad L'Achim backers quoted in the piece also took offense at the reported recent founding of a new Messianic congregation, which they tried to paint as a "cult-ish" and "secretive" enterprise.
"We have a problem dealing with this issue, because the meetings take place in a private residential home in one of the apartment buildings so that naturally the activity there is very hidden and secretive," said one rabbi.
Oded Raban, a local Messianic Jew, refuted such nonsense, telling the paper that “there is nothing inappropriate in the [Messianic community's] activities ... [there is] no truth in the claims that we behave in an underhand manner. And if it comes across that way, the only reason is that we face such extreme antagonism, that it doesn’t leave us with many options.”
Raban reiterated what many other Messianic Israelis have stressed before:
"We have tens of thousands of believers in this country, and we are all citizens of this state. We are loyal to it, serve in the army, give to it, but our worldview is slightly different from other Jews’, and for that reason, other Jews see us as an anomaly. We, as our Jewish brothers, believe in God and see Him as the center of everything in this world."
Israel's government this week heatedly debated how and if to restart peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, as US Secretary of State John Kerry returned to the region to continue pushing the two sides back to the table.
Meeting with Kerry in Jerusalem on Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel "wants to restart the peace talks with the Palestinians. ...I hope the Palestinians want [this] as well...we ought to be successful for a simple reason: When there’s a will, we’ll find a way."
But fiery discussions in the Knesset earlier in the week put an end to any illusions that Israel's new government is anywhere close to a unified position regarding the peace process.
At a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said the government's goal was to restart peace talks with the Palestinians as soon as possible.
Just days earlier Livni had told Army Radio that there is no chance of reaching a peace deal with Hamas, with which the Palestinian Authority continues to seek reconciliation, and which Palestinian voters continuously put into power.
Nevertheless, Livni insisted that birthing a Palestinian state is in Israel's interests, and that this is the baseline of renewed peace talks. More right-wing members of the government countered by stating that a two-state solution was not an official policy, even if it had been accepted by individual members of the government.
"Two states for two peoples is not the government's official position," said MK Orit Strock of the Jewish Home party, interrupting Livni. "It is not part of the government's guiding principles, and for good reason. This is perhaps Netanyahu's position and your position, but it has not been accepted as the government's position."
MK Moti Yogev, also of Jewish Home, added that "two nations for two peoples is disconnected from reality."
Members of the centrist Yesh Atid party questioned how Israel could expect the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table if Israel's government had not come to a consensus that it accepts a Palestinian state? Jewish Home members suggested that this was precisely the point, and that official acceptance of a Palestinian state had been purposely left out of the new government's guiding principles.
Committee chairman and former Foreign Minister MK Avigdor Lieberman (Israel Beiteinu) stepped in noting that even for those who prefer simply to manage the conflict and realize true peace might not be achievable, Israel still must return to negotiations to prevent outside forces from imposing a solution.
Livni made one last effort at what appeared to be scare-mongering, claiming that "not reaching an agreement with the Palestinians will lead to the end of Zionism."
Strock responded that Israel must not be afraid because "this is our land," to which Livni quipped, "This is our land, but the question is if this state will remain ours or not."
Meanwhile, those insisting that the land-for-peace process is the only way forward continued to ignore what the Palestinians themselves are saying amongst themselves.
Over 61 percent of Palestinians responding to a global survey by the Pew Research Center said a Palestinian state will not live in peaceful coexistence with Israel, while a 67 percent majority said violence should be used to achieve Palestinian goals.
Forty-eight percent of Palestinian voters said they still hold a favorable view of Hamas, while 56 percent like the even more radical Islamic Jihad.
As Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor noted on Monday, the true obstacle to peace is that Palestinian society has never been educated to live in peace with Israel, and so it never will.
"The more the Palestinian people continue to fertilize the land with hatred of Israel, the smaller the chance that the seeds of peace in the Middle East will sprout and take root," Prosor said during an exchange with Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat.
IAF Commander, Major General Amir Eshel, spoke Wednesday about the IAF’s preparedness for a surprise war scenario with Syria, and said that the S-300 anti-aircraft system is on its way to Syria.
“A surprise war can come about through many scenarios at present,” he said at a conference of the Fisher Institute for National Security in Herzliya. Isolated incidents can escalate very quickly, he explained, and added that “we are committed to being ready in a matter of hours and to operate up to the end of the spectrum.”
“The Assad regime has invested a lot in order to attain the best aerial defense capabilities that it could buy,” he said. “We are talking about weapons from a completely different generation, nothing like what was there before.”
He noted, however, that, “There is no system that does not have a solution. The question is only — at what cost.”
“From the little money he has,” Maj. Gen. Eshel explained, “Assad has invested billions in buying the best weapons systems Russia can offer, including the S-300, which is en route to Syria. And he is not the only one; everybody is busy acquiring such capabilities.”
The Google chairman, Eric Schmidt, has told political leaders to sort out a rational and predictable international tax system, as he faced a wave of criticism over the firm’s failure to pay more tax.
Ed Miliband attempted to deliver his rebuke direct to Schmidt when invited to speak at the Google Big Tent conference, although the US executive missed the Labour leader’s address on Wednesday, saying he had to attend a meeting in London.
Nick Clegg disclosed at a press conference he had also criticised Google at a Downing Street meeting earlier in the week at which Schmidt was present. David Cameron’s aides, after earlier denying the prime minister rounded on Schmidt at that meeting, later briefed that Google had been implicitly rebuked in the context of the prime minister’s general call for greater tax transparency as part of his agenda for the G8 summit next month.
Speaking at the annual Big Tent event after Miliband had left, Schmidt said one of his key concerns about changes to the tax structure was that Google might be “doubly or quadruply taxed”.
Asked by Labour MP Stella Creasy how he would reform the tax system, he suggested: “Have a rational system that’s predictable and doesn’t change very much.
“Virtually all the American companies have tax structures like this, and UK companies operating in the US do too. But if we pay more taxes in one area, then we pay less in another.
A fully fledged federal Europe may seem like "political science fiction" today but will soon become reality for all European Union countries whether inside or outside the euro, Jose Manuel Barroso has said.
The president of the European Commission has fanned the flames of British debate over EU membership by insisting that fiscal union in the eurozone will lead to "intensified political union" for all 27 member states.
"This is about the economic and monetary union but for the EU as a whole," he said.
"The commission will, therefore, set out its views and explicit ideas for treaty change in order for them to be debated before the European elections."
"We want to put all the elements on the table, in a clear and consistent way, even if some of them may sound like political science fiction today. They will be reality in a few years' time."
Mr Barroso's announcement that he will set out plans for a European federation next spring, before elections to the European Parliament in May 2014, will further deepen Conservative divisions over the EU.
The intervention will add weight to the argument made by Lord Lawson, and other anti-EU Tories, that it is pointless to try and improve Britain's membership terms when the dynamic, set by the eurozone, is towards a fully-fledged federal Europe.
The commission president's argument is that as the eurozone adopts federalist structures on fiscal and economic policy, supported by Britain as necessary for financial stability, there will also be a need for political structures that will fundamentally change the way the EU works.
"Further economic integration would transcend the limits of the intergovernmental method of running the EU and the eurozone in particular," Mr Barroso said.
Writing in The Times today, Lord Lawson, the former Chancellor, has reignited the Tory debate on Europe by calling for exit from the EU because developments in the eurozone have changed Europe's politifal structures, an argument that mirrors Mr Barroso's case for a new federal or constitutional treaty.
"The heart of the matter is that the very nature of the EU, and of this country's relationship with it, has fundamentally changed after the coming into being of the European monetary union and the creation of the eurozone, of which - quite rightly - we are not a part," Lord Lawson wrote.
Proposals for an EU "political union", with budget policies set in Brussels and an elected president of Europe, will derail David Cameron's attempts to negotiate a new settlement for Britain, culminating in an "in or out" referendum in 2017.
In stark contrast to the Prime Minister's call for Britain to regain sovereignty from Brussels, Mr Barroso has called on all European leaders to accept that political union is inevitable in order to confront outright opposition to the EU, such as that from the UK Independence Party.
"This is why I believe the mainstream forces in European politics must seize the initiative, should leave their comfort zone to welcome and embrace this debate, rather than relinquish the momentum to eurosceptic or europhobic forces," he said.
"If you believe in the democratic resilience of Europe, if you take Europe's citizens seriously, you have to fight with rational arguments and unwavering convictions - and be convinced, as I am personally, that these will win the debate for us in the end."
The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Obama Administration’s decision to deny asylum to a German homeschooling family.
The Romeike family fled their German homeland in 2008 seeking political asylum in the United States – where they hoped to home school their children. Instead, the Obama administration wants the evangelical Christian family deported.
An Immigration judge granted them asylum in 2010 after the family revealed they were facing criminal prosecution for homeschooling their children. That decision was later overturned by the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2012.
The court ruled today that the Romeikes had not made a sufficient case and that the United States has not opened its doors to every victim of unfair treatment.
The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Obama Administration’s decision to deny asylum to a German homeschooling family.
The Romeike family fled their German homeland in 2008 seeking political asylum in the United States – where they hoped to home school their children. Instead, the Obama administration wants the evangelical Christian family deported.
An Immigration judge granted them asylum in 2010 after the family revealed they were facing criminal prosecution for homeschooling their children. That decision was later overturned by the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2012.
The court ruled today that the Romeikes had not made a sufficient case and that the United States has not opened its doors to every victim of unfair treatment.
“Congress might have written the immigration laws to grant a safe haven to people living elsewhere in the world who face government strictures the United States Constitution prohibits,” the court ruled. “But it did not.”
Michael Farris, founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association, vowed to appeal the decision.
“America has room for this family and we will do everything we can to help them,” Farris said.
The court did rule that parents do have a right to direct the education and upbringing of their children. However, they refused to concede that the harsh treatment of religiously motivated homeschoolers in Germany amounts to persecution within our laws.
“Germany continues to persecute homeschoolers,” said Mike Donnelly, the HSLDA’s director of international affairs. “The court ignored mountains of evidence that homeschoolers are harshly fined and that custody of their children is gravely threatened—something most people would call persecution. This is what the Romeikes will suffer if they are sent back to Germany.”
The Justice Dept. is arguing that German law banning home schooling does not violate the family’s human rights.
“They are trying to send a family back to Germany where they would certainly lose custody of their children,” Farris told Fox News. “Our government is siding with Germany.”
Farris said the Germans ban home schools because “they don’t want to have religious and philosophical minorities in their country.”
“That means they don’t want to have significant numbers of people who think differently than what the government thinks,” he said. “It’s an incredibly dangerous assertion that people can’t think in a way that the government doesn’t approve of.”
He said the Justice Dept. is backing that kind of thinking and arguing ‘it is not a human rights violation.”
Farris said he finds great irony that the Obama administration is releasing thousands of illegal aliens – yet wants to send a family seeking political asylum back to Germany.
“Eleven million people are going to be allowed to stay freely – but this one family is going to be shipped back to Germany to be persecuted,” he said. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”
While the family awaits their fate, the Romeikes have built a new life in eastern Tennessee.
Uwe, a classically-trained pianist, relocated their brood to a four-acre farm in the shadow of the Smokey Mountains in eastern Tennessee. And with the help of a generous community, the family adjusted to their new home - complete with chickens, ducks and a dog named Julie.
“We are very happy here to be able to freely follow our conscience and to home school our children,” he told Fox News. “Where we live in Tennessee is very much like where we lived in Germany.”
Uwe said he was extremely disappointed that their petition to seek asylum was appealed by the Obama administration.
“If we go back to Germany we know that we would be prosecuted and it is very likely the Social Services authorities would take our children from us,” he said.
Uwe said German schools were teaching children to disrespect authority figures and used graphic words to describe sexual relations. He said the state believed children must be “socialized.”
“The German schools teach against our Christian values,” he said. “Our children know that we home school following our convictions and that we are in God’s hands. They understand that we are doing this for their best – and they love the life we are living in America on our small farm.”
Daniel, the oldest son, said he and his siblings have adjusted to their new home -- learning English and meeting other teenagers -- and of course -- the freedom to home school.
"I can learn a lot from my parents, much more than I could learn from school," he said.
Daniel loves to work with wood -- building sheds, and candle holders and designing contraptions. One day, he hopes to become an mechanical engineer.
But the teenager's fate is in uncertain until the courts rule.
"I hope this is not the end of the story," Romeike told Fox News. "If we get deported, we will certainly face fines and if we don't pay we might have to go to jail -- or worst of all -- they might take custody of our children."
Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, says he needs to know who has been ordering the Internal Revenue Service attacks on conservative organizations.
“The main point here is this: Someone is giving out marching orders for these agencies and these employees to do these things. The question is, who is giving out the marching orders?’ Poe said in an interview with WND.
The head of the Internal Revenue Service’s tax-exempt organizations office, Lois Lerner, appeared before a U.S. House committee Wednesday but refused to answer questions, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Poe is particularly concerned about IRS targeting of the King Street Patriots, a tea party group founded in Houston by Catherine Engelbrecht.
The congressman compared the IRS scandal to the Fast and Furious gun-tracing scandal: “Who is the person who decided to smuggle guns to Mexico? We still don’t know.”
Poe emphasized that the IRS scandal doesn’t amount to “some rogue employee” acting on his own.
Markets went on a wild rollercoaster ride as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke addres
sed Congress’ Joint Economic Committee, first making it clear that tapering QE today would be unproductive, then admitting that it could happen over the next two FOMC meetings if warranted by the data. Channeling his inner Greenspan, Bernanke filled the ether with words meant to mask his underlying intentions, but a few contradictions did make their way into his speech which reveal his easing bias. QE, it seems, is still here to stay.
If the data supports it, “[the Fed] could take a step down in the next two meetings,” Bernanke told Congressman Kevin Brady, who asked if the Fed’s asset purchases could end before Labor Day. Within seconds, bond and equity markets, which had rallied strongly, took a sharp turn to the downside. Minutes later, Wall Street was back in rally mode.
Bernanke was hedging his words, but ultimately signaled that the Fed won’t begin to tighten any time soon, and that means quantitative easing is still the name of the game. The QE riddle came in two parts: first, in his prepared remarks, Bernanke noted a “premature tightening [would] carry a substantial risk of slowing or ending the economic recovery.”
When bystanders in John Wilson Street heard a car smashing into a street sign, they turned and saw what they thought were two black men trying to help a white man they had run over.
Instinctively, some started to head towards the chaotic scene in Woolwich, south-east London, to offer help, or stopped their cars so they could call for an ambulance.
But what they were witnessing was not a suburban road accident, but the most brutal murder imaginable, as two al-Qaeda-inspired Islamist terrorists hacked at their victim “like a piece of meat” in an “animal” frenzy on the suburban pavement. The attack on the soldier was so brutal that it appeared as if “they were trying to remove organs”, according to one man who witnessed the first terrorist murder on British soil in eight years.
When they finally finished beheading and butchering the soldier’s body, the assailants appeared to say a prayer “as if it was a sacrifice”, one witness said.
Police took so long to arrive that the killers casually paced up and down the street, their hands dripping with blood, making a series of pronouncements that were filmed by onlookers.
