Journalist Files Charges against WHO and UN for Bioterrorism and Intent to Commit Mass Murder

Hey, I'm game. I trust my government about as far as I can throw them and I trust formerly wealthy capitalistas even less. I know that I'll catch a lotta shit for this one, and for good reason, but these questions always go through my head in these scenarios, so kill me for thinking. A pandemic has been declared. How many friends and family do you know who have swine or bird flu?--Pete By Barbara Minton

Global Research, July 8, 2009

NaturalNews

As the anticipated July release date for Baxter's A/H1N1 flu pandemic vaccine approaches, an Austrian investigative journalist is warning the world that the greatest crime in the history of humanity is underway. Jane Burgermeister has recently filed criminal charges with the FBI against the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations (UN), and several of the highest ranking government and corporate officials concerning bioterrorism and attempts to commit mass murder. She has also prepared an injunction against forced vaccination which is being filed in America. These actions follow her charges filed in April against Baxter AG and Avir Green Hills Biotechnology of Austria for producing contaminated bird flu vaccine, alleging this was a deliberate act to cause and profit from a pandemic. Summary of claims and allegations filed with FBI in Austria on June 10, 2009 In her charges, Burgermeister presents evidence of acts of bioterrorism that is in violation of U.S. law by a group operating within the U.S. under the direction of international bankers who control the Federal Reserve, as well as WHO, UN and NATO. This bioterrorism is for the purpose of carrying out a mass genocide against the U.S. population by use of a genetically engineered flu pandemic virus with the intent of causing death. This group has annexed high government offices in the U.S. Specifically, evidence is presented that the defendants, Barack Obama, President of the U.S, David Nabarro, UN System Coordinator for Influenza, Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, David de Rotschild, banker, David Rockefeller, banker, George Soros, banker, Werner Faymann, Chancellor of Austria, and Alois Stoger, Austrian Health Minister, among others, are part of this international corporate criminal syndicate which has developed, produced, stockpiled and employed biological weapons to eliminate the population of the U.S. and other countries for financial and political gain. The charges contend that these defendants conspired with each other and others to devise, fund and participate in the final phase of the implementation of a covert international bioweapons program involving the pharmaceutical companies Baxter and Novartis. They did this by bioengineering and then releasing lethal biological agents, specifically the "bird flu" virus and the "swine flu virus" in order to have a pretext to implement a forced mass vaccination program which would be the means of administering a toxic biological agent to cause death and injury to the people of the U.S. This action is in direct violation of the Biological Weapons Anti-terrorism Act. Burgermeister's charges include evidence that Baxter AG, Austrian subsidiary of Baxter International, deliberately sent out 72 kilos of live bird flu virus, supplied by the WHO in the winter of 2009 to 16 laboratories in four counties. She claims this evidence offers clear proof that the pharmaceutical companies and international government agencies themselves are actively engaged in producing, developing, manufacturing and distributing biological agents classified as the most deadly bioweapons on earth in order to trigger a pandemic and cause mass death. In her April charges, she noted that Baxter's lab in Austria, one of the supposedly most secure biosecurity labs in the world, did not adhere to the most basic and essential steps to keep 72 kilos of a pathogen classified as a bioweapon secure and separate from all other substances under stringent biosecurity level regulations, but it allowed it to be mixed with the ordinary human flu virus and sent from its facilities in Orth in the Donau. In February, when a staff member at BioTest in the Czech Republic tested the material meant for candidate vaccines on ferrets, the ferrets died. This incident was not followed up by any investigation from the WHO, EU, or Austrian health authorities. There was no investigation of the content of the virus material, and there is no data on the genetic sequence of the virus released. In answer to parliamentary questions on May 20th, the Austrian Health Minister, Alois Stoger, revealed that the incident had been handled not as a biosecurity lapse, as it should have been, but as an offence against the veterinary code. A veterinary doctor was sent to the lab for a brief inspection. Burgermeister's dossier reveals that the release of the virus was to be an essential step for triggering a pandemic that would allow the WHO to declare a Level 6 Pandemic. She lists the laws and decrees that would allow the UN and WHO to take over the United States in the event of pandemic. In addition, legislation requiring compliance with mandatory vaccinations would be put into force in the U.S. under conditions of pandemic declaration. She charges that the entire "swine flu" pandemic business is premised on a massive lie that there is no natural virus out there that poses a threat to the population. She presents evidence leading to the belief that the bird flu and swine flu viruses have, in fact, been bioengineered in laboratories using funding supplied by the WHO and other government agencies, among others. This "swine flu" is a hybrid of part swine flu, part human flu and part bird flu, something that can only come from laboratories according to many experts. WHO's claim that this "swine flu" is spreading and a pandemic must be declared ignores the fundamental causes. The viruses that were released were created and released with the help of WHO, and WHO is overwhelmingly responsible for the pandemic in the first place. In addition, the symptoms of the supposed "swine flu" are indistinguishable from regular flu or from the common cold. The "swine flu" does not cause death anymore often than the regular flu causes death. Burgermeister notes that the figures for deaths reported for the "swine flu" are inconsistent and there is no clarity as to how the number of "deaths" has been documented. There is no pandemic potential unless mass vaccinations are carried out to weaponize the flu under the guise of protecting the population. There are reasonable grounds for believing that the mandatory vaccines will be purposely contaminated with diseases that are specifically designed to cause death. Reference is made to a licensed Novartis bird flu vaccine that killed 21 homeless people in Poland in the summer of 2008 and had as its "primary outcome measure" an "adverse events rate", thereby meeting the U.S. government's own definition of a bioweapon (a biological agent designed to cause an adverse events rate, i.e death or injury) with a delivery system (injection). She alleges that the same complex of international pharmaceutical companies and international government agencies that have developed and released pandemic material have positioned themselves to profit from triggering the pandemic with contracts to supply vaccines. Media controlled by the group that is engineering the "swine flu" agenda is spreading misinformation to lull the people of the U.S. into taking the dangerous vaccine. The people of the U.S. will suffer substantial and irreparable harm and injury if they are forced to take this unproven vaccine without their consent in accordance with the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, National Emergency Act, National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51, Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20, and the International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza. In the U.S. since 2008, Burgermeister charges that those named in her allegations have implemented new and/or accelerated the implementation of laws and regulations designed to strip the citizens of the U.S. of their lawful constitutional rights to refuse an injection. These people have created or allowed provisions to remain in place that make it a criminal act to refuse to take an injection against pandemic viruses. They have imposed other excessive and cruel penalties such as imprisonment and/or quarantine in FEMA camps while barring the citizens of the U.S. from claiming compensation from injury or death from the forced injections. This is in violation of the laws governing federal corruption and the abuse of office as well as of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Through these actions, the named defendants have laid the groundwork for mass genocide. Using the "swine flu" as a pretext, the defendants have preplanned the mass murder of the U.S. population by means of forced vaccination. They have installed an extensive network of FEMA concentration camps and identified mass grave sites, and they have been involved in devising and implementing a scheme to hand power over the U.S. to an international crime syndicate that uses the UN and WHO as a front for illegal racketeering influenced organized crime activities, in violation of the laws that govern treason. She further charges that the complex of pharmaceutical companies consisting of Baxter, Novartis and Sanofi Aventis are part of a foreign-based dual purpose bioweapons program, financed by this international criminal syndicate and designed to implement mass murder to reduce the world's population by more than 5 billion people in the next ten years. Their plan is to spread terror to justify forcing people to give up their rights, and to force mass quarantine in FEMA camps. The houses, companies and farms and lands of those who are killed will be up for grabs by this syndicate. By eliminating the population of North America, the international elite gain access to the region's natural resources such as water and undeveloped oil lands. And by eliminating the U.S. and its democratic constitution by subsuming it under a North American Union, the international crime group will have total control over North America. Highlights from the complete dossier The complete dossier of the June 10th action is a 69 page document presenting evidence to substantiate all charges. This includes: Factual background that delineates time lines and facts that establish probable cause, UN and WHO definitions and roles, and history and incidents from the April, 2009 "swine flu" outbreak. Evidence the "swine flu" vaccines are defined as bioweapons as delineates in government agencies and regulations classifying and restricting vaccines, and the fear of foreign countries that "swine flu" vaccines will be used for biological warfare. Scientific evidence the "swine flu" virus is an artificial (genetic) virus. Scientific evidence the "swine flu" was bioengineered to resemble the Spanish flu virus of 1918 including quotes from Swine Flu 2009 is Weaponized 1918 Spanish Flu by A. True Ott, Ph.D., N.D., and a Science Magazine report from Dr. Jeffrey Taubenberger et.al. The genome sequence of the "swine flu" Evidence of the deliberate release of the "swine flu" in Mexico Evidence as to the involvement of President Obama that delineates his trip to Mexico which coincided with the recent "swine flu" outbreak and the death of several officials involved in his trip. Contention is made that the President was never tested for "swine flu" because he had been previously vaccinated. Evidence as to the role of Baxter and WHO in producing and releasing pandemic virus material in Austria includes a statement from a Baxter official stating the accidentally distributed H5N1 in the Czech Republic was received from a WHO reference center. This includes delineation of evidence and allegations from Burgermeister's charges filed in April in Austria that are currently under investigation. Evidence Baxter is an element in a covert bioweapons network Evidence Baxter has deliberately contaminated vaccine material. Evidence Novartis is using vaccines as bioweapons Evidence as to WHO's role in the bioweapons program Evidence as to WHO's manipulation of disease data in order to justify declaring a Pandemic Level 6 in order to seize control of the USA. Evidence as to the FDA's role in covering up the bioweapons program Evidence as to Canada's National Microbiology Lab's role in the bioweapons program. Evidence of the involvement of scientists working for the UK's NIBSC, and the CDC in engineering the "swine flu". Evidence vaccinations caused the Spanish killer flu of 1918 including belief of Dr. Jerry Tennant that the widespread use of aspirin during the winter that followed the end of World War I could have been a key factor contributing to the earlier pandemic by suppressing the immune system and lowering body temperatures, allowing the flu virus to multiply. Tamiflu and Relenza also lower body temperatures, and therefore can also be expected to contribute to the spread of a pandemic. Evidence as to manipulation of the legal framework to allow mass murder with impunity. Constitutional issues: the legality vs. illegality of jeopardizing the life, health and public good by mass vaccinations. The issue of immunity and compensation as evidence of intent to commit a crime. Evidence as to the existence of an international corporate crime syndicate. Evidence of the existence of the "Illuminati". Evidence as to the depopulation agenda of the Illuminati/Bilderbergs and their involvement in the engineering and release of the artificial "swine flu" virus. Evidence that weaponized flu was discussed at the annual Bilderberg meeting in Athens from May 14-17, 2009, as part of their agenda of genocide, including a list of attendees who, according to a statement once made by Pierre Trudeau, view themselves as genetically superior to the rest of humanity. Media is keeping Americans clueless about the threat they are under Jane Burgermeister is a dual Irish/Austrian who has written for Nature, the British Medical Journal, andAmerican Prospect. She is the European Correspondent of the Renewable Energy World website. She has written extensively about climate change, biotechnology, and the ecology. In addition to the charges currently under investigation that she filed against Baxter AG and Avir Green Hills Biotechnology in April, she has filed charges against WHO and Baxter among others concerning a case of exploding "swine flu" vials meant for a research lab on a busy IC train in Switzerland. In her view, control of the media by the ruling elite has allowed the world crime syndicate to further its agenda unabated while the rest of the people remain in the dark about what is really going on. Her charges are an attempt to get around this media control and bring the truth to light. Her greatest concern is that "in spite of the fact Baxter has been caught red handed nearly triggering pandemic, they are also moving ahead, together with allied pharma companies, with supplying the vaccine for pandemics." Baxter is hurrying to get this vaccine to market some time in July.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article. To become a Member of Global Research The CRG grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles on community internet sites as long as the text & title are not modified. The source and the author's copyright must be displayed. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: crgeditor@yahoo.com www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner. For media inquiries: crgeditor@yahoo.com © Copyright Barbara Minton, NaturalNews, 2009 The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=14276

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CYNTHIA MCKINNEY

I will only add that Cynthia McKinney was my choice and my vote for POTUSA this past November. She was arrested by Israeli forces along with 20 other activists while trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. She is back in the states as of Tuesday, July 7.--Pete

John Judge - I got a call confirming that former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and three other U.S. citizens were transferred from the Israeli prison at Ramale to Ben Gurion airport in Israel, the standard site for deportations. This information came originally from Mairead Maguire, the Irish Nobel laureate and was confirmed by the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, which is sending representatives to the airport.

Meanwhile nothing from the White House or the Black Caucus on the arrest of McKinney. Pretty selective outrage.

The truth is flexible

You have to go to work early. That's what they call it, going to work (probably because that's what it is.--Pete).

Get there by 7 a.m. or some guy who says he's disabled, or some woman who claims she has kids, will steal your slice of sidewalk.

You want an interstate off ramp: lots of traffic, an overpass for shade. Or a busy intersection with a long stoplight.

And you need a sign: your life story summed up on a soggy square.

Better yet, make two signs, so you can be whatever you need to be.

"After a while, you learn what works," said Roderick Couch, 28. He was in a wheelchair outside a St. Petersburg Wal-Mart last week, clutching a sign that said, "Disabled." The word was in quotation marks, as if the writer were crossing his fingers. Couch limps but can walk 100 blocks of U.S. 19 in a day. He hasn't worked since he got out of jail.

His girlfriend, Jazmine Saldana, 24, held her own banner: Homeless. No quotation marks, but maybe there should have been. Since the couple started panhandling in November, they have had enough money to sleep in a motel all but one night.

"You have to know how to fly," Saldana said. That's what they call it, flying a sign.

Every day, from dawn to dusk, they're out there. From Seminole to St. Petersburg, Clearwater to Carrollwood, hundreds of panhandlers brandish their makeshift billboards across Tampa Bay. Their weathered faces and sad signs have become part of Florida's landscape.

There's the elderly African-American man who swears he fought in 'Nam. His hat reads "U.S. Air Force." His sign includes the Marine motto, "Semper fi."

There's the bearded white guy whose cardboard claims he was "layed off." And the young guy with the red goatee and "Anything helps" sign who hangs out by Tampa's Bayshore Boulevard Publix.

Every day, you see more.

Around Tampa's Hyde Park alone, panhandlers say they can count at least 200 of their kind. In St. Petersburg, off I-275, nine people compete for shifts at one intersection. Turf wars erupt. A 60-year-old man who uses a walker recently shoved a 49-year-old into the bushes. "He knew I owned that spot under the tree."

Maybe you feel sorry for them: Times are tough. It could be me.

Maybe they make you angry because they want handouts.

Homeless or not, desperate or not, they all have their strategies, each one forged in the blast oven of the streets.

"Panhandling isn't just a job. It's an art," said Cliff Stewart, 49, who has worked the I-275 22nd Avenue N exit in St. Petersburg since he got out of prison two years ago.

You have to know what moves people most: beer and God.

• • •

You have to learn the rules. What to do, what to avoid doing. You have to set quotas. And know the right words.

Police say: Stay on the sidewalk. Wait for people in the cars to call you over.

Panhandlers say: If someone else is waiting to fly a sign, you have to rotate out every half-hour. If you leave to get a drink, you forfeit your shift.

Try to make eye contact. People in BMWs and Lexuses won't look at you, the panhandlers say. People in beaters give the most. When someone gives you money, that's a hit. Or a lick. Try to look friendly but not too happy. Remember, you're hurting.

Don't smoke or drink beer or scratch yourself. Don't wipe your nose or pick your scabs. Who would want to slide money into that hand? Stand on one foot sometimes so drivers will think you're not drunk; your eyes are bloodshot because you've been crying. And just because some hippie gives you a baggie of mushrooms, it doesn't mean you're going to trip.

"People hand you all sorts of things," said Damion Ogdee, 29, who works the Hyde Park area. He has gotten Budweisers and Pop-Tarts, cigarettes and T-shirts. His buddy once scored four tickets to a Poison concert.

Women give more money than men. Female panhandlers fare better but have to put up with obscene propositions. "If I was doing that," said a thin young woman named Sarah, "you think I'd be out here holding this sign?"

She was at the 22nd Avenue N off ramp in St. Petersburg. Her cardboard said, "Stranded! Trying to get home." With all the competition, it's no longer enough to be generically needy.

"The more specific your request, the more people can relate," said Sarah. "That way they think they're really helping."

• • •

Two debates divide the panhandling community: Stay on one corner or float? Wheelchair or walker?

If you always work the same sidewalk, regulars get to know you. If you float from spot to spot, your face — and your story — stay fresh.

Some say wheelchairs increase people's pity. But if you're in a chair, you can't get to the cars. Wheelchair Dave, they say, did better with his cane.

"A lot of people out here aren't sincere," said Roderick Couch, the "disabled" ex-con. "That messes it up for the rest of us."

According to Couch, there are low-class panhandlers "who sleep outside and won't even clean themselves." And high-class panhandlers "who might even work a little on the side, so they don't really need your money."

"Me and Jazmine," he said, "we're middle-class. We believe in washing our clothes and our butts. We got morals."

Like everyone else interviewed, they have criminal records. He served time for stealing from the Spring Hill IHOP where he worked. His girlfriend was arrested for prostitution.

• • •

Your sign is your voice. You have only a few words to get sympathy at a stoplight.

Scrawl your messages in magic marker on the back of a Listerine box or a pilfered "Home for Sale" placard. Highlight your words with crayons. End your pleas with three exclamation points.

Are you homeless? A vet? A single dad? A widow? Do you have an ailing mother or pet? All the above?

One guy parades his limping dog. Another says he sends half his money to his 2-year-old son. One admits he stays out just long enough to collect enough for smokes and a six-pack.

"I don't need much. So I don't have to stay out here long," said Jeffrey Buzzard, 49, who lives behind a St. Petersburg church. In the back of his dirty camouflage shorts, he carries three signs. His morning pitch says "Layed off." His evening placard: "No work today." Like he tried. On Sunday, he flies: "Got God? Need daily bread."

Other professional panhandlers swear by the two-sign minimum. You have to watch the cars, switch it up. When Cliff Stewart sees an older driver at 22nd Avenue N, he holds: "Homeless Vet." For people who look like they party, he has: "Why lie? I need beer. God bless!"

God and beer. If you don't like one, he says, you're bound to like the other. And you'd be surprised how many people love both.

• • •

Though their signs say they're homeless, few panhandlers seem to sleep outside. Most make at least enough for a can of beer, a piece of chicken and a cheap motel room. The typical daily take falls between $60 and $100.

Couch and Saldana say they each collect about $80 a day, more than they would make flipping burgers or stocking shelves. They don't have to punch a clock, ask for a lunch break or pay taxes. "A while back, a woman gave us $400," Couch said. "Tell me where you can make that in a day."

Ogdee, outside the Bayshore Publix, sets his weekly quota at $800. His income has never fallen short in the four months he has held "Homeless. Anything helps. God bless!"

"I'm paid a week in advance on my rent," he said. "I got a load of food in my motel fridge."

He insists he's not panhandling. "I'm not asking for nothing. I'm just holding a sign."

So what does he call it? He laughs.

"Making money."

Lane DeGregory can be reached at degregory@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8825. Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this story.

Meet The New Boss...

Holy shit! I can't believe what I'm reading here in the NYT! VP Joe Biden explaining that we can't "stand in the way" of an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program! It's damn near advocacy! This is the same nuclear program that has been declared legal and transparent by the September 08 IAEA report. --Pete

July 6, 2009

Biden Suggests U.S. Not Standing in Israel’s Way on Iran

By BRIAN KNOWLTON

WASHINGTON — Plunging squarely into one of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. suggested on Sunday that the United States would not stand in the way of Israeli military action aimed at the Iranian nuclear program.

The United States, Mr. Biden said in an interview broadcast on ABC’s “This Week,” “cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do.”

"Israel can determine for itself — it’s a sovereign nation — what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," he said, in an interview taped in Baghdad at the end of a visit there.

The remarks went beyond at least the spirit of any public utterances by President Barack Obama, who has said that diplomatic efforts to halt Iran’s nuclear program should be given to the end of the year. But the president has also said that he is “not reconciled” to the possibility of Iran possessing a nuclear weapon — a goal Tehran denies.

Mr. Biden’s comments came at a particularly sensitive time, amid the continuing tumult over the disputed Iranian elections, and seemed to risk handing a besieged President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a new tool with which to fan nationalist sentiments in Iran.

What was not immediately clear was whether Mr. Biden, who has a long-standing reputation for speaking volubly — and sometimes going too far in the heat of the moment — was sending an officially sanctioned message.

The Obama administration has said, and Mr. Biden reaffirmed this, that it remains open to negotiations with Tehran, even after the bitterly contested election that returned Mr. Ahmadinejad to the presidency.

“If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage,” Mr. Biden said. “The offer’s on the table.”

But separately, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned of the costs of any military strike against Iran.

“It could be very destabilizing, and it is the unintended consequences of that which aren’t predictable,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Still, he added, “I think it’s very important, as we deal with Iran, that we don’t take any options, including military options, off the table.”

Earlier in his interview with ABC, Mr. Biden had seemed sensitive to the risk of handing Mr. Ahmadinejad and the supreme Iranian leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, a propaganda edge by criticizing the elections too forcefully and allowing them to claim that “the reason why there was unrest is outside influence.”

He called Mr. Obama’s original condemnations, which some criticized as overly cautious, “absolutely pitch-perfect.”

If Mr. Biden’s comments on Israel and Iran were perhaps off the cuff, he did not back away from them when given a chance to do so.

George Stephanopoulos, the program’s host, asked: “But just to be clear here, if the Israelis decide Iran is an existential threat, they have to take out the nuclear program, militarily the United States will not stand in the way?”

And Mr. Biden replied: “Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination — if they make a determination — that they’re existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.”

The Israeli government has said that it hopes to see the Iranian nuclear program halted through diplomacy, but it has not ruled out a military strike. Talk of such a strike flared episodically during the Bush presidency.

Such a strike is considered highly problematic, both for the unpredictable shock waves it would send coursing through the region and because of the technical difficulty of destroying nuclear facilities that are scattered around Iran, some of them deep underground.

Still, the disputed Iranian election result has raised concerns in Israel. Officials there say that the victory by Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has called for the destruction of Israel, underscored the Iranian threat and bolstered the argument for tough action.

In May, Mr. Obama told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel during a meeting at the White House that “we’re not going to have talks forever” with Iran; in the absence of cooperation from Tehran, he said, the administration would not rule out “a range of steps.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/us/politics/06biden.html?_r=1&hp

David Michael Green: The Rhetorical President

David Michael Green: The Rhetorical President

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Washington State Increases Basic Health Plan Premiums To Drive Poor Off The Rolls

Basic Health Plan premiums to rise sharply

By Kyung M. Song
Seattle Times health reporter

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009314057_webbasichealth08m.html

Premiums for Washington's Basic Health Plan will as much as double in January as part of a strategy to drive thousands of members off the popular but cash-strapped state-subsidized insurance program.

Ending weeks of deliberations, officials announced this morning that they will boost Basic Health's rates by an average of 70 percent as part of their effort to boot 30,000 to 40,000 working-class people off its rolls.

Officials rejected four other potential options on how to shrink the 100,000-member pool, including a lottery and ejecting members based on how long they'd been on the program.

In the end, officials punted on the dilemma, leaving it up to the members themselves to decide whether to stay or to leave.

"This is the best possible option out of difficult choices," said Preston Cody, deputy administrator of Washington State Health Care Authority, the agency that operates Basic Health.

Currently, Basic Health's premiums range from $17 to $281 a month, depending on the member's age, income and county of residence. Starting in January, the poorest members with incomes below the poverty level will pay twice as much, $34 or $45.

Rates for higher-income enrollees will go up by about 50 percent, to about $400 a month for those 55 and older. This will be the biggest premium increase in the program's 21-year history.

In all, the average monthly premium for all members will climb to $61.60 from $36. Yet even with the increases, the average person will still will be paying only 25 percent of the actual cost of coverage, with the state chipping in the rest.

Read Entire Article:

Manipulation, propaganda, imagery & PR wizardry

America's Nightmare: The Obama Dystopia

By Andrew Hughes

Global Research, May 23, 2009

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13716

After 8 years of the Bush-Cheney nightmare during which we saw the wanton destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, the cynical negation of centuries of Law designed to protect the most basic human rights and a foreign policy worthy of Genghis Khan, there came along the "Great Black Hope" in the persona of Barack Obama. The collective world consciousness turned uncritically to what was presented as a new era for peace, change and trust in Government.

Never before had one witnessed such an accomplished use of manipulation, propaganda, imagery and public relations wizardry to sell the public a man who was to take the baton from Bush and run with it in the race to destroy the economy, the rights of the people and help birth a nation totally controlled by those who have always lurked in the shadows of power. "Change" was promised and was delivered in the form of a deepening of the already Dystopic nightmare.

Promises were broken with no apology, the same creative legalese that infested the Bush administration, in the form of John Yoo and Alberto Gonzalez, was again used to deny justice to the inmates of Guantanamo, It was used to justify more torture, more destruction of the Constitution and more illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens.

The President that extended the hand of peace to the Muslim world has murdered hundreds of Pakistani men, women and children. The President who promised accountability in Government has filled his staff with lobbyists, banksters and warmongers. His Attorney General refuses to prosecute some of the worst war crimes committed in modern history and continues to give legal cover to criminals who tortured with impunity.

The country has been further bankrupted by the continuing theft of taxpayer money as the Wall St. campaign donors receive their quid pro quo. Obama has stood by idly as Bernancke states that the private Federal Reserve is not answerable to either Congress of the American public. The U.S. taxpayer is now on the hook for $14.3 Trillion and rising. Foreclosures and unemployment are rising with no meaningful efforts by the administration to alleviate the symptoms, never mind the cause. The new image of America is one of tent cities, lengthening soup kitchen lines, sherrifs evicting countless thousands of young and old from their homes, once prosperous towns descending in to an eerie stillness and an increasingly disillusioned populace.

The "War on terrorism" has mutated in to a control grid for an increasingly aware population. The foundation for this had already been put in place by Bush with the Patriot Act, Patriot Act 2, Military commissions act and numerous executive orders that strangled what was left of Posse Comitatus and the Constitution.

Homeland Security now defines "Terrorists" as those who believe in the Constitution, the first, second and fourth amendments. Returning veterans are being targeted for a denial of their second amendment rights. A "Terrorist Watchlist" of more than a million and rapidly growing, is being used as the basis for denying citizens the rights to travel and to work.

Obama is now mulling over the idea of indefinite detention without trial for U.S. citizens. This, from a teacher of the Constitution ! Bills are in congress to criminalize free speech on the Internet via the Cyberbullying Act which will make hurting somebody's feelings a felony. Just like the Patriot Act this will morph in to a criminalization of political free speech and any criticism of the Government.

"Cyberterrorism" is being used as a pretext to bring government regulation to the the last stronghold of unbiased information. Washington has realized that it's getting harder to get away with their Fascist agenda and are moving to control the field. The populace have become more aware of just what kind of "Change" Obama intended to deliver.

There has been a growing resistance on a state level with several invoking their 9th and 10th Amendment rights in a valiant attempt to stop the Federal Vampire from draining the last drops of blood, the last vestiges of Freedom and Hope.

This is the Dystopic Nightmare that America finds itself in today and each day brings new assaults on Freedom and Sanity. The framework for total control of the citizenry, the economy and the media is being built upon in a relentless aggrandization of Govermental power. Obama sits atop his new Empire still smiling that sickeningly disingenuous smile surrounded by his seasoned courtiers who have worked for decades to bring America in to this new era of the New World Order.

Domestic Terrorist Threats! Time to call out the National Guard and raid the churches in pre-emptive attacks!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Defenders (2009)

Cadged from Shakesville: Excellent satire about the hypocrites who believe that they are the arbiters of marital propriety

DN! Doctors, Activists Confront Senate on Single-Payer Healthcare

Amy Goodman and Democracy Now piece regarding Right To Health-Care activist's demanding that the insurance company lobbyists who are writing health-care policy instead of our elected representatives include consideration of their seeming arch enemy, government-guaranteed health care for all. Short but inspiring...

What do Wal-Mart and Starbucks have in common?

Stop illegal union-busting tactics now. I stand in solidarity with service industry workers (the majority of workers in the US!) in their push for union representation against corporate domination. Will you stand with me? I'm sure there is a wonderful independent coffee shop in your area the you can patronize instead of Starbucks. Please consider doing so. Thank you.--Pete

Shout out to Liberal Homo

Hey, libhom, 

We love you here at GetOffThis!, and want to communicate with you. Our humble little blog garners so few comments but yours are always on the mark. My email address is agnosis@sbcglobal.net. Hit me up, willya?

SMOOTHING THE ROAD TO EVIL

Watching the media treat torture as just another policy discussion shows how smooth the road to evil can become with the press' assistance. The Washington Post, for example, ran a story headlined:

Effectiveness of Harsh Questioning is Unclear

We look forward to further stories along this line such as

Experts Debate Effectiveness Of Concentration Camps For Unwanted Immigrants

Legal Scholars Examine Murdering Suspects As More Effective Drug Enforcement Tool

What Made Hitler So Effective?

FINDING FUN FLU FACTS

Sam Smith

Ten days ago your editor came down with the first serious case of the flu or a cold or an allergy or god knows what since the Internet hit the big times. I did what I always do now when I'm trying to find something out: I hit the Big G. But unlike buying a new car, finding out local recycling laws, or checking the films at the E Street Theater, the Internet totally failed me.

True, it wasn't all the Internet's fault. The media has a strange approach to illness - obsessed with its possible fatalities but largely indifferent to less important matters such as symptoms and best cures. To the extent that modern medicine has discovered the Internet, it is still remarkably skewed towards preachy little statements that don't help the patient much. Especially when he's coughing.

As best as I can figure, this current unpleasantness had its roots in my granddaughter's group nursery and was lovingly transmitted to pops and omah about ten days ago. This would put it well in advance of the swine flu epidemic and would rank it amongst the most normal of respiratory mishaps. Certainly my doctor and my wife's thought so. We were part of the flu and allergy background noise of the season.

But once the swine flu crisis descended, things changed. On those surprisingly rare occasions when the media even bothered to mention the symptoms, it became ever harder to distinguish them from my own. CNN even claimed I had every symptom of swine flu. Which gave me one more reason to watch MSNBC.

There is something to be learned here. When one is ill, one has little taste for beautiful graphics or pompous and puerile prescriptions or suggestions of a worthy but, at the moment, unattainable life style. One wants cures, brands of cures, and useful warning signs that things are getting worse. One basic question, for example, went totally unanswered as far as I could find: when do you call your doctor?

All this could be accomplished on a simple spread sheet that helped one distinguish between the types of misery one might be enduring, what things might help it, when to get truly worried, and what to do then. The origins, history or geography of the illness is of little concern. There is, after all, only case that really matters. Yours.

As it was, nine days in I had to rely on an NPR correspondent. After all who in the world has a greater interest in not sounding awful? She explained to me something I had missed thanks to my rare contact with these problems and to the fact that I could find it nowhere on the Net. Water is not only important because of dehydration, but it actually soothes those tiny objects in the bottom of your throat that make you sound like a vertical Mt Vesuvius erupting every few minutes - proving once again that if you really want to know about something, go to someone for whom the answer truly matters.

"Juking the Stats"

Modern testing culture is certainly not education and might be child abuse.

David Simon, who is responsible for my all time favorite TV series, "The Wire", was on Bill Moyers last night.

He referred to our national zeal for test taking as "juking the stats", a quote that comes from an episode where teachers in a Baltimore inner city school are told that they must teach strictly from the test for the few months prior to giving Baltimore's version of the DCCAS.

The cop turned teacher from the series is familiar with his city's police force (and incumbent mayors) needing positive statistics and draws an analogy between the school's superintendent needing better test scores and the police chief needing better crime stats.

Simon adds that this need for positive statistics has made real police work nearly impossible, a theme that ran through "The Wire".

Real teaching is also inhibited when teachers are asked to abandon the literature they love or mathematical investigations that involve time and the building of things for mass produced DCCAS test taking practice materials.

A newly minted graduate of Howard University called me recently. She is working as a long-term sub at a DCPS Public elementary school.

She was overwhelmed and jittery. Her 4th graders were badly behaved and could not focus on the materials she had been given to use for the three hour Language Arts block.

"What curriculum are you using?" I asked.

"Test taking skill stuff. You know, read a short passage and pick out the main idea. Or, underline the verb in the following ten sentences. Materials like that. We have been ordered to use them."

"For three hours a day? What about history and science?"

"We have been asked to not teach history and science for the time being because they are not subjects on the test."

“Who's your principal?”

“He is new,” she answered. “Hand picked by Michelle Rhee.”

The friend that called me studied theater at Howard University. She knows how to get kids excited about language, movement, the spoken and written works. She has her favorite stories and plays.

But no, like the Baltimore Police Force, in the name of juking the stats, she has abandoned her instincts and dutifully followed her principal's orders.

How sad is that.

Dispatch from the BIP

While the media spread propaganda and false information, the FOX faithful buy it to assuage their guilt while the living room sheep who never question their consensus-manufacturing devices concur, poor Latinos in the south (and everywhere else!) are living lives of quiet desperation. Arrest and harrassment numbers are wildly disproportionate for these people who merely want to make a livng, for themselves and their families, due their own economy's depressed state.--Pete

Shocking: Today, Life in the South for Poor Latinos Is Pure Hell!
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org/story/137787/

According to a study released this week by the Southern Poverty Law Center, low-income Latinos in the American South are living in what one participant described as a "war zone."

The report was based on interviews with hundreds of poor Latinos -- U.S. citizens and legal and illegal immigrants alike. It paints a bleak picture of the routine abuses faced by those among a marginalized underclass. According to the authors, poor Latinos in the South "are routinely cheated out of their earnings and denied basic health and safety protections. They are regularly subjected to racial profiling and harassment by law enforcement. They are victimized by criminals who know they are reluctant to report attacks."

Eliseo Medina, Executive Vice President of SEIU, a union that organizes service workers with some of the least political clout in the American workforce, called the results of the study, "a remarkable indictment of the prejudice, racial profiling and outright abuse faced by hardworking Hispanics, some of our country’s most vulnerable workers."

According to the report:

This treatment — which many Latinos liken to the oppressive climate of racial subordination that blacks endured during the Jim Crow era — is encouraged by politicians and media figures who scapegoat immigrants and spread false propaganda. And as a result of relentless vilification in the media, Latinos are targeted for harassment by racist extremist groups, some of which are directly descended from the old guardians of white supremacy.

The authors add, "instead of acting to prohibit and eliminate systematic exploitation and discrimination against Latinos, state and local governments in much of the South have exacerbated the situation" through harsh local policies and over-the-top rhetoric about illegal immigration.

Dispatch from the Black Iron Prison

Cop Tasers Minor Five Times for Not Getting Off His Bike Fast Enough
By Digby, Hullabaloo

Here's a story about a teen-age bicyclist who was tasered five times for failing to respond to a police officer's order to "get off the road." It is written by a lawyer who specializes in bicyclist rights and he asks the fundamental question: do you have a right to not comply with a police officer? It's at the heart of the taser question because nine times out of ten, people are not being tasered because they are threatening the cop or anyone else; they are tasered because they fail to comply with a police officer's order. So, the question is, do the police have a right to shoot someone with electricity simply because he or she is arguing with them or refuses to promptly obey their order?

If police used these things sparingly and had to answer to board of inquiry whenever they are used, it would be one thing. But they are using them pretty much in any situation and often when they already have someone in custody. And while it's true that as a practical matter one is well advised to cooperate with police, I find it difficult to see how we are a free people, with rights guaranteed by the constitution, if the government is allowed to shoot citizens with electricity solely because they fail to do what agents of the government tell them to do.

Digby is the proprietor of Hullabaloo.

© 2009 Hullabaloo All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://www.digbysblog.blogspot.com//138309/

Sticker Nation 2!

Sticker Nation 2: The Big Book of Subversive Stickers