Paglia supports Birthers/Keep following the money.

Back on August 5th, I wrote a post called Follow the Money which dealt with my opinion that if something were to happen to Obama it would not be at the hands of a pissed off redneck, but instead, that it would be the result of Obama ticking off a big money special interest who would do him in.

I also commented on Orly Taitz latest birther lawsuit and that her husband was in the tank with Novartis pharmaceutical. I mentioned that the birther movement might still have wings.

Lo and behold, Salon's own cultural critic Camille Paglia, in an NPR interview, stated that the birthers may have a point.

From WND:

Feminist icon Camille Paglia, a Salon.com columnist who earlier wrote about the ambiguities of President Barack Obama's birth certificate, now has told a National Public Radio audience that those who have questions about his eligibility actually have a point.

 

President Obama

Talking to the NPR program "On Point" this week, she provided a defense to the citizens who carried protest signs asking "Where's The Birth Certificate" at the recent protests that drew hundreds of thousands to Washington.

The program discussion focused on the "civility" of the political attacks on both Obama and his critics. One caller to the program described his visit to Washington and the myriad signs questioning Obama's eligibility to be in office.

"It was unbelievable. It was absolutely everywhere," the caller stated.

Paglia responded:

First of all, I reject the idea that the 'birther' campaign is motivated by racism. There may be racism among it, but there are legitimate questions about the documentation of Obama's birth certificate. I'm sorry, I've been following this closely from the start. To assume that all those signs about the birth controversy were motivated by racism, that is simply wrong.

She continued, explaining she first came on the scene in the 1990s and has dealt with cries of sexism and homophobia, calling such battle cries "emotional" triggers.

 

Paglia said the fact there was little racism in the campaign against Obama is evidenced by the fact he "was elected by white people."

Criticism of Obama, instead, is coming because of the "strategic failures he is making in pushing this very important issue of health care reform."

According to the Washington Independent, the exchange was "compelling."

Paglia, a professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and Salon.com columnist, earlier wrote, "Yes, there were ambiguities about Obama's birth certificate that have never been satisfactorily resolved. And the embargo on Obama's educational records remains troubling."

Her commentary at that time addressed Obama's "painful missteps," and she addressed charges that Obama has suffered from poor advice.

"The buck stops with the top executive. But we all know how little executive experience Barack Obama has had. He was elected for his vision and his steady, deliberative character, not his résumé. For better or worse, Obama is learning as he goes – and surely most fair-minded people would grant him reasonable leeway as he grows into the presidency, one of the hardest jobs in the world," she wrote.

"At a certain point, however, Obama will face an inescapable administrative crux. Arriving at the White House, he understandably stayed in his comfort zone by bringing old friends and allies with him …. But these comrades may not have the practical skills or broad perspective to help Obama govern," wrote Paglia.

Citing "one needless gaffe after another," including the "embarrassing incident" in which Obama bowed to the king of Saudi Arabia, she wrote about the "ambiguities" about his birth certificate and the "troubling" status of Obama's concealed educational records.

Link to rest of article: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=110114

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I'm not going to get into whether or not Obama was born in Hawaii or Kenya, it does not matter. If enough big money interests are upset with Obama, then whether he was born in Kenya or not, he WILL have been born in Kenya and thrown out of office......or worse.

For the moment, Obama has apparently calmed big pharma and the insurance industry by stating he will take the public option off the table, but his cancelling of the Euro  missile defense system and the cutting of key pet defense projects put him in jeopardy from big defense.

Obama has also angered many of his base by continuing Bush/Cheney policies and not delivering on his many promises.

Considering the magnitude of the Obama enemies list, I'd say the best he can hope for at this point is to be removed from office by some legal means, but more and more it is looking like his enemies will take that option off the table and just eliminate him outright.

America is heading for some really turbulent times in the not too distant future I'm afraid. I'm no fan of Obama's, but for the sake of his family and the nation, I hope he gets through this mess OK. (But, sadly, I do not think he will.)

Keep up the good work Camille...........NOT!

Beastiality goes mainstream.

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9/11 Busted Update.

The following is an update to my August 29,2009 post "9/11 Busted". The comments were published in World Architecture News.com. The authors were Richard Gage, AIA, Gregg Roberts and David Chandler all with a group called Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, which now has over 800 members.




Richard Gage, AIA, Gregg Roberts, and David Chandler

Richard Gage, AIA has been a practicing San Francisco Bay Area architect for more than 20 years, and is a registered member of the American Institute of Architects. Most recently he worked on a $400M mixed-use facility in Las Vegas NV. But he is also the founder and CEO of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, now numbering over 800 A/E’s, calling for a new investigation into the destruction of all 3 WTC high-rises on 9/11. Gage has spoken at over 100 events, reaching 20 U.S. states and 8 countries. He has been invited to present in 14 cities Australia, New Zealand, and Japan before the end of this year. As the anniversary of the events approaches, Gage tells WAN why he thinks there are hidden depths to the destruction of the World Trade Centre...

In all likelihood, you are unaware of the most important facts involving the destructions of the World Trade Center buildings. Nearly all the mainstream information sources and government officials have kept crucial information hidden from the public. This brief article will provide a clear explanation as to what actually happened to the Twin Towers and Building 7 (WTC 7) on September 11, 2001.

Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth) is a non-partisan, non-profit organization now numbering over 800 technical professionals and thousands of other supporters dedicated to exposing the facts that point to the explosive destruction of all three World Trade Center (WTC) high-rises.

We are calling for a new independent investigation empowered to subpoena and question witnesses under oath. Well-documented facts prove the WTC high-rises were destroyed by explosives. The implications are grave, but we ask that you look at the facts. AE911Truth is also concerned that evidence has been distorted and covered up by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the federal agency assigned to investigate the building collapses.

World Trade Center – Building 7




WTC 7 was a 47-story steel-framed high-rise 100 yards from the North Tower. Even though no airplane hit it, it collapsed rapidly and totally on 9/11, in the manner of a controlled demolition. Despite its suspicious collapse, the 9/11 Commission report does not even mention WTC 7. NIST left its analysis of the WTC 7 collapse until 2008, seven years after the events, long after all the rubble was destroyed. NIST claims WTC 7 collapsed due to “normal office fires” which created a “new phenomenon” in high-rise catastrophes: collapse caused by thermal expansion of beams. NIST claims this caused the failure of a single column – the rest just followed.


Free-fall acceleration through 40,000 tons of structural steel?

NIST Forced to Acknowledge Free-Fall of WTC 7

In August 2008, NIST released the draft of its final report on Building 7. In that draft NIST claims that the building took 40% longer than "free-fall time" to collapse the first 18 stories. In a technical briefing that followed the release of the draft report Shyam Sunder, NIST’s lead investigator, denied that free-fall had occurred and stated that free-fall was incompatible with their analysis. He said, “… a free fall time would be an object that has no … structural components below it...And that is not at all unusual because there was [emphasis in original] structural resistance that was provided in this particular case. And you had … a sequence of structural failures that had to take place and everything was not instantaneous.”

However, one of this article’s co-authors, David Chandler, used video analysis to show conclusively that for 2.5 seconds (about 100 feet) WTC 7 was in complete free-fall. He publicly challenged NIST’s claims at the technical briefing and he, along with others, filed formal requests for corrections.

NIST were forced to reverse themselves in their Final Report and acknowledged 2.25 seconds of absolute free-fall. Yet they did not reconsider how this was compatible with their analysis. A network of heavy steel girders had to be forcibly removed suddenly across the width of the building for eight floors. However, a free-falling object cannot exert force on anything in its path without slowing its own fall, so the structural support had to be removed by something else—explosives. The free-fall of Building 7 is a smoking gun.

World Trade Center – Commonalities in all Three Building Destructions

Complete Destruction Through the Path of Greatest Resistance
NIST claims that the Twin Towers collapsed due to the plane impacts and fire, and that WTC 7 collapsed due to fire alone. However, note that the Twin Towers survived the plane impacts and the jet fuel burned off in the first 10 minutes. Beyond that, all we have are not very large office fires. Over 100 steel framed buildings have suffered major fires, many much worse, yet none have collapsed. All three buildings on 9/11 fell through what should have been the path of greatest resistance – thousands of tons of steel – resulting in total dismemberment. This would require precisely timed removal of critical columns, which office fires cannot accomplish. Furthermore, a small falling top section would destroy itself before it could destroy a larger, stronger, undamaged lower section of the building. The impossible collapse is a smoking gun.

Molten Iron
The temperatures of the fires present a problem for NIST's claim that fire alone was involved. The melting point of steel is about 2800° F. According to NIST's own documents, hydrocarbon fires (e.g., jet fuel and office furnishings) generate temperatures only up to about 2,000° F under ideal conditions. NIST recognizes these fires could not melt steel, so they had to postulate elaborate mechanisms that might trigger collapse due to weakened columns and sagging girders.

Yet there is widespread evidence of molten iron in the rubble piles. Photos and numerous witnesses -- including fire fighters, cleanup crews, and structural engineers -- confirm the existence of several tons of molten metal under the debris. Some fire fighters described molten steel flowing like lava. Photos clearly reveal molten metal dripping as material is being lifted by excavation equipment.


Office fires are not hot enough to create the molten metal seen by dozens of witness

A video of the South Tower shows molten metal pouring out, glowing a radiant orange-yellow. Some have claimed this is molten aluminum, which melts at a lower temperature, but molten aluminum would be silvery in these conditions. This is molten iron or steel.


Jet fuel and office fires can’t create molten iron

At least three independent laboratory analyses of the dust that blanketed Lower Manhattan after the destruction of the Twin Towers reveal the presence of iron-rich “microspheres.” These spheres are formed when molten iron is sprayed into the air and forms droplets that cool before hitting the ground. The iron droplets indicate temperatures during the collapses much higher than hydrocarbon fires, in an explosive environment that could spray many tons of these droplets into the air.


Billions of previously molten iron spheres found in all WTC dust samples

In April 2002, the RJ Lee Company was hired to investigate environmental contaminants in the Deutsche Bank, across the street from the World Trade Center. It reports, “Many of the materials, such as lead, cadmium, mercury and various organic compounds, vaporized and then condensed during the WTC Event.” The problem here is that lead vaporizes at 3200° F, some 1200° F hotter than is possible in hydrocarbon fires. A study of the WTC dust by the USGS for the EPA observed molybdenum-rich spheres that can form only above 4750° F. The high temperatures are another smoking gun.

Unignited Nano-Thermite in the WTC Dust
NIST did not even look for physical evidence of explosives. In fact NIST did not look at the physical evidence at all, apart from a few selected samples of the steel. The rest was destroyed. However, physical evidence did remain: the dust. NIST did not look at the dust, but independent investigators did. They discovered, along with the microspheres, tiny red-grey chips. They examined samples of WTC dust from different parts of Manhattan. All contained the red-gray chips. They found that the red layer consisted of unignited nano-thermite. Ordinary thermite is an incendiary: it can burn through heavy steel in seconds. The tiny particles in nano-thermite (1/1000 the thickness of a human hair) causes a much faster reaction so it can be used as a high explosive. The discovery of nano-thermite in the WTC dust was published in The Open Chemical Physics Journal in April 2009.


Hundreds of Red/Grey chips of “Unignited thermite” in every WTC Dust sample


Nano-thermite particle sizes are 1,000 times smaller than a human hair. This material is not made in a cave in Afghanistan.

These scientists found not just a smoking gun, but a loaded gun.

Independent lines of evidence prove the official government claims are impossible. We see our role at AE911Truth as exposing the evidence official agencies and the corporate media are covering up. Following up on the implications is the responsibility of every citizen. Every citizen must face his or her own conscience when confronting these difficult facts -- especially when we consider that 9/11 is the foundation for two wars, the launching of an endless "war on terror," and the loss of our freedoms due to legislation pushed through amid the fog of war.

The Hell with it, just nuke their raghead asses.

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So as not to come across as a hypocrite, I'd say we should nuke Thailand since it is the epicenter of organized child prostitution and then we should nuke the Vatican, since it is the headquarters of the Catholic Pedophelia Movement.

Having stated the above, it's time to look at the despecable practice of Bacha Bazi or "boy play." The below article pretty much spells it out. This practice had to have been known by the Bush administration and the Obama administration as it is common practice in Afghanistan, but it gets scant mention in the United States. As Christians we must forgive these sinners, but that does not mean the State cannot punish them for their actions.........said punishment being in the form of a mushroom cloud. A Men.

Reuters:(excerpt) PUL-E KHUMRI, Afghanistan (Reuters) - They are known as "bacha bereesh", boys without beards, teenage boys who dress up as girls and dance for male patrons at parties in northern Afghanistan.

It's an age old practice that has led to some of the boy dancers being turned into sex slaves by wealthy and powerful patrons, often former warlords, who dress the boys up as girls, shower them with gifts and keep them as "mistresses".

Afghan police are battling to crackdown on the practice which has angered Islamic clerics who say those involved should be stoned for sodomy, forbidden under Islamic law. In a society where the sexes are strictly segregated, it is common for men to dance for other men at weddings in Afghanistan. But in northern Afghanistan, former warlords and mujahideen commanders have taken that a step further with competitions for their dancing boys.

"Every boy tries to be the first. They are dressed in women's clothes, have bells on their feet and have artificial breasts," said Mohammad Yawar, a former mujahideen fighter against the Taliban and resident of the northern town of Pul-e Khumri. The practice, called "bacha bazi" -- literally "boy play" -- has a long history in northern Afghanistan, but sometimes it does not stop with just dancing.

"I very much enjoy hugging a boy. His smell and fragrance kills me," said Yawar. The 38-year-old businessman said he recruited a 15-year-old boy three years ago to help him with his work. "I have had him for at least three years, since he was only 15. He was looking for a job and I gave him somewhere to stay," said Yawar, showing the boy's picture. "I don't have a wife. He is like my wife. I dress him in women's clothes and have him sleep beside me. I enjoy him and he is my everything," he said, kissing the photograph.

MARK OF PRESTIGE

Having the best-looking boy and the best dancer is a mark of prestige. "Everyone tries to have the best, most handsome and good-looking boy," said a former mujahideen commander, who declined to be named. "Sometimes we gather and make our boys dance and whoever wins, his boy will be the best boy." Former mujahideen commanders hold such parties in and around Pul-e Khumri about once a week. "Having a boy has become a custom for us. Whoever wants to show off, should have a boy," said Enayatullah, a 42-year-old landowner in Baghlan province. "I was married to a woman 20 years ago, she left me because of my boy," he said. "I was playing with my boy every night and was away from home, eventually my wife decided to leave me. I am happy with my decision, because I am used to sleeping and entertaining with my young boy."

The men say they lavish money and gifts on their boys. "I was only 14-years-old when a former Uzbek commander forced me to have sex with him," said Shir Mohammad in Sar-e Pol province. "Later, I quit my family and became his secretary. I have been with him for 10 years, I am now grown up, but he still loves me and I sleep with him." Ahmad Jawad, aged 17, has been with a wealthy landowner for the past two years. "I am used to it. I love my lord. I love to dance and act like a woman and play with my owner," he said. Asked what he would do when he got older, he said: "Once I grow up, I will be an owner and I will have my own boys."

But Shir Mohammad, at 24, was already getting too old to be a dancing boy. "I am grown up now and do not have the beauty of former years. So, I proposed to marry my lord's daughter and he has agreed to it."

POVERTY

Many local residents have called for a crackdown, but are sceptical it will work as many of the men are powerful and well-armed former commanders. Jahan Shah, who lives in Pul-e Khumri, said government and security officials should take tough action against unIslamic and immoral acts.

"If they don't stop this, it will become a custom and hundreds of other boys will be involved in it," he said. Police and security officials in northern Afghanistan say they have been doing their best to arrest the men involved.

"It is sad to state that this practice that includes making boys dance, sexual abuse and sometimes even selling boys, has been going on for years," said General Asadollah Amarkhil, the security chief of Kunduz province. "We have taken steps to stop it to the extent that we are able," he said. Amarkhil said poverty, widespread in Afghanistan after nearly three decades of war, forced teenage boys into compliance. ================================

If you haven't tossed your cookies yet, you have a problem. And we are sending good, decent Americans over there to get killed why? Just nuke their ass and take their gas. (and be done with it once and for all)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKNOA93661520071119?pageNumber=2&sp=true

And the rich get richer

The following article by Emily Spence comes from Thomas Paines Corner:

By Emily Spence
9/5/09


Americans, particularly ones from the middle class, need to realize that there are no core entitlements imparted by their government representatives, nor any other sources. They have none and should adjust their expectations accordingly.



If the U.S. populace somehow imagines that its members are viewed any differently than any other populations across the world that are used to produce maximal profits for the top economic class, there’s a rude awakening in store ahead. Further, most legislators simply do not care whether middle and lower class interests are or aren’t well served as long as they, themselves, can somehow make out well in the times ahead.



Besides, why should any Americans feel that they deserve to be treated more favorably by the transnational moneyed elites and their government backers than their counterparts across the rest of the world? As A. H. Bill reminds: “The richest 225 people in the world today control more wealth than the poorest 2.5 billion people. And… the three richest people in the world control more wealth than the poorest 48 nations.”



Occasionally someone making a staggering amount of money in a crooked sort of way might raise a few officials’ eyebrows or induce a mild reprimand. In addition, he might, occasionally, be singled out as the token fall guy so as to be made into a warning example as was Bernie Madoff. Most of the time, though, no action is usually undertaken to correct the situation when directors of major companies carry out activities that are, obviously, right on or over the edge of fraudulent practices.



As Barack Obama, perhaps hypocritically, chastened, “Under Republican and Democratic administrations, we failed to guard against practices that all too often rewarded financial manipulation instead of productive and sound business practices. We let the special interests put their thumbs on the economic scales.”



Yet, he, himself, showed no hesitation during his election campaign over collecting $40,925 from the bailout fund recipient and nearly bankrupt investment house Bear Stearns, $161,850 from the bailout fund recipient and mortgage underwriter Morgan Stanley, as well as benefits from countless other institutions that have received government favors at taxpayers’ expense. As such, it’s hard in actuality to deliver more than just a mild verbal rebuke about these organizations’ modus operandi if one picks up a personal windfall from not meddling. Thus, the financial corruption continues at all levels of government.



A case in point is the self-serving oil trader Andrew Hall. His relationship with Citigroup’s (C.N) Phibro energy-trading unit brought him approximately $100 million in 2008 despite that his parent company registered a net deficit of $18.7 billion for the same year and received $45 billion in TARP funds.



However, it’s been pointed out that he could moderately adjust his current level of gain and continue to maintain the same procurement pattern if he manages to stay out of the limelight. If he follows this plan in the near future, his earnings and bonuses won’t likely duplicate the $250 million personal compensation that he’d received in the past five years. Yet, he could still make out quite well all the same!



In any event, one has to question such lavish rewards considering that Citigroup suffered a 95% loss of its share value since 2007 in relation to which Phibro “occasionally accounts for a disproportionate chunk of Citigroup income.” At the same time, the U.S. government will shortly be the owner of 34% of this company. Put more bluntly, is Andrew Hall’s personal prosperity and propensity to add to his private art collection the best use of taxpayers’ funds?
As long as he’s a lavish beneficiary, would he care if they weren’t? As the economist John Kenneth Galbraith once suggested: “The salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.” Naturally, Andrew Hall aims to keep such a cozy arrangement intact.



Besides, his personal take is relatively inconsequential. It’s a mere pittance contrasted to the almost two and a quarter billion dollars grand total — roughly $2,217,800,000 — that the top ten U.S. business moguls collectively grossed as their own recompense in 2008. [1]
At the same time, it cannot not be expected, in a market based economy, that political influence is not also a purchased commodity. Clearly, opinions are bought and sold just as easily as are any other products and services with payment being campaign funds, such as Obama’s, from big industry; offers of high paying future jobs and other lavish advantages dangled as bait.
On account of this kind of shady deal, tax subsidies connected to executive pay amounted to $20 billion in 2008 according to United for a Fair Economy (UFE) and Institute for Policy Studies. (Imagine if this money, instead, were allocated towards improvements in public education, provision of a universal heath-care plan or any number of other programs that could uplift the American public as a whole.)



During the same period, average CEO pay, at $10.54 million, was 344 times higher than typical worker pay. This disparity, also, is generally indicative of a trend that increasingly funnels wealth upward rather than having it more equitably distributed across class lines.
Another sign of this ascendant drift can be found in the change between the first Forbes 400 report (1982) and its 2008 version. In 1982, an entrepreneur only needed slightly more than $100 million dollars to get on the list. By 2008, he wouldn’t be in the top 400 unless he’d garnered at least $1.3 billion. In other words, so much more wealth shot upward in the last twenty years that $100 million now is almost viewed as chump change in comparison to the new top gains.



In addition, Congressional reports have indicated that widespread tax avoidance tricks, like use of overseas banks that do not report amounts to the IRS, have cost taxpayers more than $2 billion annually. Certainly, these lost moneys could well be used to help people less fortunate. For example, the hidden $2 billion could be used to create job training programs for any of the one in nine Americans currently forced to rely on food stamps as an alternative to starvation.
To be eligible for such aid, a family of four, for example, has to have no more than $2,389 as its gross monthly income or 130% of the official poverty level and no more than $1,838 net monthly income or 100% of the poverty level. (There are few deductions and exceptions to the requirements allowed, along with limits for owned property value imposed, that further determine whether one meets qualifications.)



In other words, a typical household of four cannot receive this help if the gross income for the foursome exceeds $28,668 annually and, for an individual, the gross not to be surpassed is $14,088. Additionally, recipients cannot have a great deal of assets with a clearly defined, too high level of worth.



As such, they have to be nearly broke across the board. Meanwhile, it’s clearly disgraceful that more than 27,651,388 Americans are so extremely poor they require food assistance to try to make ends meet.



Even that help, though, is often not enough to prevent further poverty and many folks are unable to avoid outright destitution across the so-called wealthy U.S.A. So next, they lose their homes… and they lose them in droves.



The huge portion of Americans who do so are staggering: While the number of U.S. foreclosure filings climbed by more than 81% in 2008, the total is still sharply rising in 2009. In relation, 300,000 homes foreclosed per month from March to May in 2009 and 1.8 million homes represented the anticipated total for the first half of the year. With such a backdrop, one out of every 398 homes received a filing in April and a whopping 6.4 million homes are anticipated to be in foreclosure by mid-2011. Simultaneously, a record number of individuals, also, applied for bankruptcy.



In a similar vein, the jobless rate, despite some minor dips downward, is still seemingly on the rise. Therefore, the current number of out of work adults could well exceed 20% if all of the hopeless ones, who are no longer collecting unemployment benefits and who gave up looking for opportunities, are added into the mix.



Moreover, they will not be able to jumpstart the economy so long as they cannot find work, and especially work at a living wage. After all, how can anyone make lots of purchases or take out bank loans if he has no reasonable income? So it follows that even more retail and wholesale stores, along with banks, will go belly up.



At the same time, the supply side of the market, itself, has created labor troubles. This is because goods have been overproduced. Consequently, there is overstock piled high in warehouses and shipping containers across the world ready to resume its path to the market once the spending reinitializes. However, spending cannot resume as long as the money has largely flowed to the top economic tier and away from average former and low wage workers, who can not expect to have decent paying jobs to create more goods until the current product glut diminishes.



In other words, consumers can’t buy much when money’s tight and work won’t be provided when there’s an oversupply of merchandise largely produced in second world sweatshops whose workers are paid so little that they hardly can put food on their own tables let alone make many more extravagant purchases — ones like toothpaste, soap and shampoo. Besides, they, too, face employment opportunities diminishing because worldwide sales are down for many of the products that, previously, their companies too copiously produced.



Concurrently, the bailouts, oriented towards fixing the credit side of the equation, are not addressing these sorts of supply side problems. Therefore, they will not keep the financial collapse from worsening.



Alternately put, TARP and other payoffs to the self-serving, unconscionable banksters and Wall Street high rollers largely responsible for the downturn will not produce an abundance of jobs. So the reasonable salaries, ultimately needed to buy the wares to cause industrial output to resume, won’t materialize any time soon.



It’s rather simple to understand, really. So why don’t Ben Bernanke and his colleagues seem to notice that massive job loss, itself, needs to be addressed posthaste? Why hasn’t a public works program been initiated? Why don’t they grasp that the act of offshoring all kinds of American jobs to maximize profits at the top tier does not ensure that products will be avidly snapped up by a greatly unemployed and underemployed public?



Since they, apparently, don’t understand, the downturn, with a few small upward twists, will remain in its plunging slide, which in turn will create further layoffs. All the while, the über-wealthy and their corporate supporters, such as most members of Congress, will continue to pamper themselves with capital largely derived from struggling taxpayers and massive loans that raise the federal deficit.



More to the point, how could the slump not last when the affluent elites gamble away huge fortunes comprising of their own and others’ money while manufacturing bubbles and Ponzi schemes in the process? How could anything change when they keep amassing more and more assets for themselves while indifferent to their impact on society as a whole?



Such practices as theirs, obviously, cannot sustain the American middle and under classes and it cannot buoy up the utmost bottom rung either. On account, scores of individuals of all ages continue to wind up in tent cities or ensconced on public park benches. (Supposedly, families with children represent the fastest growing subset of the homeless population in the U.S.A. at present and the average age of a homeless person is nine years old.)



When the upper-crust keeps getting richer by taking an ever greater portion of the overall wealth and government schemes assure that the process continues, nearly everyone else becomes increasingly cash poor. When every now and then big investors suffer hefty losses, the government steps in to shore them up again and again. However, this practice, clearly, does not help the populace in general. The evidence that it does not can be seen everywhere across the American landscape and the entire world.



It follows, then, that, “in the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2004, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.3% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.3%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one’s home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.2%…”, according to G. William Domhoff, a sociology professor at University of California at Santa Cruz. [2]



Another way to measure the shift in wealth is by noting some of the corporate trends, themselves. As Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh, at the Institute for Policy Studies, point out:



Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations; only 49 are countries (based on a comparison of corporate sales and country GDPs).



The Top 200 corporations’ sales are growing at a faster rate than overall global economic activity. Between 1983 and 1999, their combined sales grew from the equivalent of 25.0 percent to 27.5 percent of World GDP.



The Top 200 corporations’ combined sales are bigger than the combined economies of all countries minus the biggest 10.



The Top 200s’ combined sales are 18 times the size of the combined annual income of the 1.2 billion people (24 percent of the total world population) living in ‘’severe” poverty.
While the sales of the Top 200 are the equivalent of 27.5 percent of world economic activity, they employ only 0.78 percent of the world’s workforce. [3]



Especially exemplifying this type of corporate immensity is the Wal Mart company. For example, the Walton heirs have a collective worth of around $65 billion and over 1.7 billion shares, or 43%, of Wal Mart stock in addition to earning $29 billion off the stock price rise alone from November 2007 to June 2008.



Meanwhile, the Waltons pay their jean laborers in Nicaragua approximately $1.50/ day. Simultaneously, their average U.S. workers are given wages of about $12,000/ annum causing a full one half of Wal Mart’s 720,000 employees to qualify for food stamps.



At the same time, the clearly exploitive Wal Mart business model is considered an unqualified success — one that should be more often duplicated across the board. After all, it shows the capitalistic free market with its best possible outcome — profits beyond imagination and the American Dream come true (for the few who manage to take unfair advantage of the actual wealth producers)!



Perhaps, though, the best way to look at the new arrangement between citizens, State and the rising corporate structures is through this superlative summation by Benito Mussolini:
The corporate State considers that private enterprise in the sphere of production is the most effective and useful instrument in the interest of the nation. In view of the fact that private organisation of production is a function of national concern, the organiser of the enterprise is responsible to the State for the direction given to production.



State intervention in economic production arises only when private initiative is lacking or insufficient, or when the political interests of the State are involved. This intervention may take the form of control, assistance or direct management. [4]



Even if Benito Mussolini’s position has an alarmingly familiar ring to it, no one still should expect U.S. legislators to create laws any time soon that would enact tax code changes in order to remove subsidies that encourage overpayment to executives and that cost taxpayers $20 billion a year. Indeed, nobody should expect any major changes at all that would level the financial playing field, remove a sense of economic injustice or bring back jobs and reasonable wages to the American people.



As Joel H. Rassman, Toll Bros. CFO in 2006, explained about CEO Robert I. Toll’s $20 million compensation while shareholders were suffering a 22% loss: “I have yet to meet the person who has enough money.”



Like Toll, a majority of Congressional representatives, of whom many are multi-millionaires, apparently imagine that they never have quite enough for themselves and justify their dodgy choices accordingly. They, also, know who butters their bread and it surely is not the increasingly impoverished average U.S. citizens, who continue to be the indirect victims of corporate rapacity and pathetic corporate oversight by executives and Congressmen alike.
In relation, one wonders when a significant number of Americans will, finally, recognize that they’ve been had. Put another way by Andrew Greeley: “It should be no surprise that when rich men take control of the government, they pass laws that are favorable to themselves. The surprise is that those who are not rich vote for such people, even though they should know from bitter experience that the rich will continue to rip off the rest of us. Perhaps the reason is that rich men are very clever at covering up what they do.”



This explanation in mind, we need not worry as much about the terrorists from abroad as the terrorists from above and the duped voters who repeatedly fall for political candidates pandering to this broadly malignant upper class. The latter bunch and their sycophantic legislative admirers, more than any foreign guerrillas, are leading the world’s wealthiest nation into ever deeper ruin.



Emily Spence is an author living in Massachusetts. She has spent many years involved in human rights, environmental and social services efforts.
REFERENCES:
[1] Top CEO collected $702 mln in 2008: US survey – Yahoo! News(http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090813/ts_alt_afp/usbusinessexecutivepaypolitics_20090813190411).
[2] Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power (http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html).
[3] CorpWatch : Top 200: The Rise of Corporate Global Power (www.corpwatch.org/article. php?id=377).
[4] Benito Mussolini, 1935, Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions, Rome, ‘Ardita’ Publishers. pp. 133-135.


Link to this article:http://thomaspainescorner.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/the-widening-gap-in-americas-two-tiered-society/

Fun at the Afghan Embassy

The below images come to us courtesy of the Project On Government Oversight. POGO is a nonprofit organization that exposes government corruption and other misconduct. Below the rather distrubing photos is a letter POGO sent to Hillary Clinton regarding the "issues" with the guard force at the Kabul Embassy.

"I'll have the Vodka a la Buttcrack"

"The Whizz Kids"


"Buns of Steel"

September 1, 2009

The Honorable Hillary ClintonSecretary, Department of State2201 C Street, NWWashington, DC 20520Dear Secretary Clinton:

As you know, last month eight rockets were fired into Kabul, two landing near the U.S. Embassy.1 Not long after, at least seven people were killed and 91 wounded, including children, when a suicide bomber struck close to the Embassy. Following the second attack, a Taliban spokesman declared that the target had been the U.S. Embassy itself. 2 In response to these and other incidents, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen conceded that the situation in Afghanistan is "serious and it is deteriorating."3

In light of this increasingly violent and uncertain environment, effective security of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and the nearly one thousand U.S. diplomats, staff, and Afghan nationals who work there 4 is paramount. Security for the Embassy is provided under a Department of State contract with ArmorGroup, North America (AGNA), which is now owned by Wackenhut Services, Inc. (Wackenhut).5 Some 450 guards and their supervisors protect the Embassy and are quartered at Camp Sullivan, a few miles from the Embassy.

The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) initiated an investigation after nearly one-tenth of the U.S./ex-pat 6 guards individually contacted us to express concerns about and provide evidence of a pattern of blatant, longstanding violations of the security contract, and of a pervasive breakdown in the chain of command and guard force discipline and morale. This environment has resulted in chronic turnover by U.S./ex-pat guards. According to the State Department, "nearly 90% of the incumbent US/Expats left within the first six months of contract performance."7 According to POGO sources, the U.S./ex-pat guard turnover may be as high as 100 percent annually. This untenable turnover prevents the guard force from developing team cohesion, and requires constant training for new replacement recruits. The guards have come to POGO because they say they believe strongly in the mission, but are concerned that many good guards are quitting out of frustration or being fired for refusing to participate in the misconduct, and that those responsible for the misconduct are not being held accountable.

After extensive interviews with eyewitnesses, and examination of documents, photographs, videos, and emails, POGO believes that the management of the contract to protect the U.S. Embassy Kabul is grossly deficient, posing a significant threat to the security of the Embassy and its personnel—and thereby to the diplomatic mission in Afghanistan.

Ineffectual Oversight by the Department of State

Failed management of security contractors by the Department of State is not new, and since the 2007 Iraqi Mansour Square massacre involving five Blackwater personnel, the State Department has promised repeatedly to strengthen its oversight.8 Yet, as in Iraq, the Department of State has utterly failed to properly manage another contractor, this time at the U.S. Embassy Kabul, Afghanistan. State has repeatedly warned AGNA about its performance on this security contract, but its threats have been empty. As a result, violations of the contract continue.

In June 2009, an investigation by the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight revealed a pattern of ineffectual Department of State oversight of the AGNA contract.9 The Senate found, for instance, that in July 2007, State issued a "cure notice," a formal advisory that AGNA's deficiencies were endangering the performance of the contract. In the cure notice, State identified 14 performance deficiencies, including the failure of AGNA to provide an adequate number of guards, relief personnel, and armored vehicles. The contracting official stated "I consider the contract deficiencies addressed below to endanger performance of the contract to such a degree that the security of the US Embassy in Kabul is in jeopardy…."10

In April 2008, the Department of State sent another cure notice notifying AGNA of numerous other serious problems with its performance, including a lack of English proficiency in a large portion of the guard force. State also cited AGNA for failing to correct many of the deficiencies identified in the July 2007 cure notice, including those related to staffing and training of the guard force. State further informed AGNA that, due to the contractor's continued weaknesses and deficiencies, the Department was considering not extending the contract for another year.11

In July 2008, despite AGNA's continuing problems, State decided to extend the contract for an additional year, noting that based on satisfactory meetings with the incoming Wackenhut managers, it was "reasonable" to expect that all performance problems would be corrected by October of that year.12 Just a month later, however, the Department of State reiterated to AGNA that it questioned the contractor's ability to provide security for the U.S. Embassy in the hostile environment of Afghanistan. Citing ongoing staffing concerns, State concluded that "AGNA needs to come quickly to terms with contract requirements especially in light of the current incidents occurring in and around Kabul and the corresponding threat environment they pose."13

By September 2008, AGNA's performance problems had grown so severe that Department of State issued a "Show Cause" letter 14 and advised that it was considering terminating the contract because the failure to provide an adequate number of guards "has negatively impacted the security posture of the Local Guard Program for the U.S. Mission to Kabul….[T]he staffing situation has further deteriorated to a level that…gravely endangers performance of guard services in a high-threat environment such as Afghanistan."15

In March 2009, the Department of State again informed AGNA that it had "grave concerns" relating to AGNA's continuing failure to provide sufficient numbers of guards. In inspections of the guard force operations, the Department of State observed that 18 guards were absent from their posts at the U.S. Embassy Kabul. In response, AGNA stated that the guards' absences were due to "supervisory personnel negligence."16

Despite these and other past problems, senior representatives from the State Department and Wackenhut Services, Inc. offered sworn testimony at a June 2009 Senate hearing that security at the Embassy is effective, and that previously identified problems had been fully remedied.17 The State Department renewed the contract again through July 2010, with the option to extend it until 2012.18 Yet the extensive evidence provided to POGO of continued security problems at the U.S. Embassy Kabul counters those sworn statements; calls into question AGNA and Wackenhut's ability to provide effective security of the Embassy; and makes a clear case that the State Department has failed in its oversight of its security contractor.

Serious Security Vulnerabilities

Was Congress Misled?

Despite Wackenhut Vice President Sam Brinkley's sworn Senate testimony that "…the Kabul contract has been fully-staffed since January 2009…" the truth is that chronic understaffing of the guard force continues to be a major problem.19 And evidence suggests Mr. Brinkley knew that. Around March, according to numerous participants, he was confronted by some 50 guards at Camp Sullivan who complained to him directly about a severe, ongoing guard shortage. Then, in an April 2009 memo to a State Department official, U.S. Embassy Kabul guard force Commander Werner Ilic reported that guard shortages had caused chronic sleep deprivation among his men. He described a situation in which guards habitually face 14-hour-day work cycles extending for as many as eight weeks in a row, frequently alternating between day and night shifts. He concluded that "this ultimately diminishes the LGF's [Local Guard Force's] ability to provide security." (Attachment 1) The contract with the State Department specifies that guards may not be on duty for longer than 12 consecutive hours.20 Interviewees and documents reveal that short-staffing frequently results in the denial of contractually guaranteed leave and vacation, and that those who do not comply are threatened with termination or actually fired.

In further contradiction of Mr. Brinkley's assurances, the Knoxville News reported on August 22 that Wackenhut has moved or is planning to deploy up to 18 guards from the nuclear weapons facilities in Tennessee to cover guard shortages in Kabul, quoting a Wackenhut spokesperson as confirming the use of the guards "to deal with personnel shortages at the embassy…."21

Communication Breakdown?

There is a significant problem with the guards' ability to communicate with each other: most of the Gurkhas 22—nearly two-thirds of the guard force—cannot adequately speak English. Although most of the Gurkha guards are serious about their jobs and perform their duties in a professional manner, the inability to speak English adequately has impaired the guard force's ability to secure the Embassy. According to a Pentagon counter-terrorism expert, tactical communications are critical to success in either preventing a gunfight or the successful execution of one should it occur, and are part of the fabric of a good military or security unit. If different languages are used, the fog of battle is significantly increased, small tactical formations do not adjust as required, and close tactical formations are likely to fail in their mission. Further, any soldier or security officer who does not know of changes in mission orders as the fight continues is more likely to respond incorrectly, unnecessarily placing them in harm's way and increasing the chances of unit fratricide. Poor tactical communications make mission failure highly probable.

This is a real risk at U.S. Embassy Kabul. The language barrier between the non-English-speakers and English-speakers has forced both sides to use pantomime in order to convey orders or instructions and interpreters to convey facilitate radio communications. One guard described the situation as so dire that if he were to say to many of the Gurkhas, "There is a terrorist standing behind you," those Gurkhas would answer "Thank you sir, and good morning." Clearly this is an unacceptable situation, especially given that security emergencies require immediate response.

The State Department has acknowledged the issue as a problem, but has not fixed it. In June 2009, State officials briefed the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, admitting that "inadequate English language proficiency among the guard force" remains a contract deficiency.23

Supervisors Engaging in Deviant Hazing and Humiliation

Guards have come to POGO with allegations and photographic evidence that some supervisors and guards are engaging in near-weekly deviant hazing and humiliation of subordinates. Witnesses report that the highest levels of AGNA management in Kabul are aware of and have personally observed—or even engaged in—these activities, but have done nothing to stop them. Indeed, management has condoned this misconduct, declining to take disciplinary action against those responsible and allowing two of the worst offending supervisors to resign and allegedly move on to work on other U.S. contracts. The lewd and deviant behavior of approximately 30 supervisors and guards has resulted in complete distrust of leadership and a breakdown of the chain of command, compromising security.

Numerous emails, photographs, and videos portray a Lord of the Flies environment. One email from a current guard describes scenes in which guards and supervisors are "peeing on people, eating potato chips out of [buttock] cracks, vodka shots out of [buttock] cracks (there is video of that one), broken doors after drnken [sic] brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity…." (Attachment 2) Photograph after photograph shows guards—including supervisors—at parties in various stages of nudity, sometimes fondling each other. These parties take place just a few yards from the housing of other supervisors.

Multiple guards say this deviant hazing has created a climate of fear and coercion, with those who declined to participate often ridiculed, humiliated, demoted, or even fired. The result is an environment that is dangerous and volatile. Some guards have reported barricading themselves in their rooms for fear that those carrying out the hazing will harm them physically. Others have reported that AGNA management has begun to conduct a witch hunt to identify employees who have provided information about this atmosphere to POGO.

Beyond basic decency standards, the situation at Camp Sullivan is clearly in violation of AGNA's contract with the State Department, which specifies, "Each contractor employee or subcontractor employee is expected to adhere to standards of conduct that reflect credit on themselves, their employer, and the United States Government."24 More broadly, the behavior is evidence of a complete breakdown of discipline and the chain of command among guards and their leadership, itself a significant security issue.

In fact, an email from a current guard expressed concern about the impact of the supervisors' behavior on the chain of command. "I am convinced the greatest threat to the security of the Embassy is the erosion of the guard forces trust in its leadership and ultimately the [Department of State]. The failure of [the supervisors] to protect those they have been tasked to lead is unacceptable, and if not held accountable will further compromise our mission. The chain of command's failure to curtail [one supervisor's] deviant actions and to not hold him accountable for countless infractions involving alcohol has made them ineffective. This has led to threats and intimidation as the only means to accomplish the day to day operations here [at Camp Sullivan] and at the Embassy. This is 'not' a onetime incident that went unnoticed by [his] direct chain of command. These are events [that] took place over the past year and a half and were ignored by the leadership at the cost of the well being of countless guard force members. If these individuals are not held accountable for their actions it will only embolden those who remain to make the same offenses against this guard force." (Attachment 3)

Alleged Victimization of Afghan Nationals

An Afghan national employed as a food service worker at the guard corps' base at Camp Sullivan submitted a signed statement dated August 16, 2009, attesting that a guard force supervisor and four others entered a dining facility on August 1, 2009, wearing only short underwear and brandishing bottles of alcohol. Upon leaving the facility, the guard force supervisor allegedly grabbed the Afghan national by the face and began abusing him with foul language, saying, "You are very good for fXXXing." The Afghan national reported that he "was too afraid of them I could not tell them any thing." (Attachment 4)

There is also evidence that members of the guard force and their supervisors have drawn Afghan nationals into behavior forbidden for Muslims. For example, photographs show guards posing with Afghan nationals at the U.S. facility at Camp Sullivan as both the guards and nationals consume alcoholic beverages in scenes that suggest drunkenness, and one photo shows a near-naked U.S. guard who appears to have urinated on himself and splashed an Afghan national. Afghanistan is a conservative Muslim country where alcohol consumption and public nudity are considered offensive and, in some instances, prohibited by law.25

Supervisors Compromising Security?

Numerous guards raised concerns to POGO about a Spring 2009 extended reconnaissance mission outside the Embassy perimeter for which guard force supervisors took weapons, night vision goggles, and other equipment from Embassy stores. Photographs posted on the internet show Embassy guards hiding in abandoned buildings in Kabul, armed, dressed as Afghans (despite contractual requirements that they be in uniform when on duty), engaged in a mission for which they had never trained. AGNA guards train for their mission of static security of the Embassy, not for reconnaissance exercises away from the Embassy. This incident created the danger that guards could have been drawn into a military incident with or taken hostage by Taliban or Afghan locals, and created a vulnerability at the Embassy by removing military equipment, leaving the Embassy largely night-blind. AGNA management awarded a commendation to 18 participants trumpeting their "Intrepidity" in a document improperly bearing the seal of the Department of State. (Attachment 5)

According to many guards, another situation in which Embassy security may have been compromised is when, on at least one occasion, supervisors brought prostitutes in to Camp Sullivan. This is a breach of security and discipline made worse because the prostitutes were escorted to the facility by some guard force supervisors themselves. Some interviewees recalled that two AGNA guard force supervisors made no secret that, to celebrate a birthday, they brought prostitutes into Camp Sullivan, which maintains a sign-in log. Women believed to be prostitutes were observed attending the birthday party.

Is Protecting a U.S. Embassy in a Combat Zone an Inherently Governmental Function?

Because the diplomatic mission in Afghanistan is so critical, and because that mission is in a combat zone, the need for effective Embassy security is particularly acute. Just this year at the U.S. Naval Academy 2009 McCain Conference, there was a seminar on "Ethics and Military Contractors: Examining the Public-Private Partnership" which looked at the question of whether security in a combat zone is an inherently governmental function. According to the Executive Summary of the conference, "contractors should not be deployed as security guards, sentries, or even prison guards within combat areas. [Armed Private Security Contractors] should be restricted to appropriate support functions and those geographic areas where the rule of law prevails. In irregular warfare…environments, where civilian cooperation is crucial, this restriction is both ethically and strategically necessary."26 Furthermore, Congress itself passed a Sense of Congress that "private security contractors are not authorized to perform inherently governmental functions in an area of combat operations."27 This language was watered down from legislation that had passed the Senate actively prohibiting private security forces from performing inherently governmental functions. 28 In neither case, however, did the legislative language recognize protecting a diplomatic mission in a combat zone as an inherently governmental function. At the very least, this is a question that needs to be examined regarding the protection of the U.S. Embassy Kabul and other embassies in combat zones.

The use of private contractors for security in a combat zone poses several dilemmas. One is the inherent tension between the effective performance of a mission and the financial interests of the contractor. Cutting costs is good for the bottom line, but can put security at risk. A legal case against AGNA brought by two former U.S. Embassy Kabul guard force supervisors, James Sauer and Peter Martino, illustrates this problem. According to the complaint, AGNA officials "acknowledged that AGNA had underbid the contract in order to secure it," and told Sauer and Martino "to 'make do' and put a 'good face' on the situation to ensure that a profit would be made on the contract and that shareholders would be satisfied....Defendants implemented plans requiring more hours per individual and fewer shifts of staff in order to cut costs and maximize Defendants' profit margin." 29 This is a clear example of the contractor endangering the U.S. diplomatic mission in order to advance its bottom line.

Another dilemma is the threat of work-stoppages—which, according to witnesses, has happened at least twice with the U.S. Embassy Kabul guard force. On two separate occasions, the Gurkhas (who make up two-thirds of the guard force) threatened to walk off the job. In fact, in one instance, buses had arrived in order to take the Gurkhas to the airport to return to Nepal. According to POGO sources, the time it took to resolve just one of those incidents resulted in the on-duty guard shift pulling an 18-hour day.

Yet another dilemma is that the laws in place do

not adequately hold accountable contractors who violate rules and endanger security in combat zones. Unlike the military, which once had the responsibility of guarding embassies and which is bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, private employers such as security firms cannot ensure a binding chain of command that provides adequate discipline and professionalism in the guard force.

Contractor in Need of Oversight

POGO is concerned that the security of the U.S. Embassy Kabul is in the hands of a contractor that has knowingly and repeatedly provided substandard equipment and services. For example, to cut costs, AGNA "downgrade[d] the quality of the vehicles to be purchased…."30 AGNA sought to maximize its profit by sacrificing the quality of protective vehicles it bought to secure the Embassy. In addition, as mentioned earlier, the State Department has repeatedly chastised AGNA for the contractor's repeated failures to fulfill staffing, language, and other contract provisions. AGNA has also failed to properly manage Camp Sullivan, as has been detailed above.

The problems with AGNA's U.S. Embassy Kabul security contract do not appear to be unique for this contractor. Recently, an ArmorGroup security guard in Baghdad's Green Zone allegedly shot and killed two fellow guards and wounded at least one Iraqi. Extraordinarily, that guard had a criminal record and was described by one security guard who worked with him as "a walking time-bomb," yet was hired by ArmorGroup anyway.31 This particular incident raises serious concerns about ArmorGroup's vetting process, and adds to the bigger picture of a contractor in serious need of strict oversight.

Recommendations

1. After two years of failed attempts by the Department of State to upgrade the performance of its private security contractors in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the Department should enter into an arrangement with Defense Secretary Gates to provide immediate military supervision of the private security force at the U.S. embassies in Kabul and Baghdad.

2. The State Department should promptly initiate a thorough and independent investigation of the U.S. Embassy Kabul security contract in order to hold corporations as well as individuals accountable for the above noted misconduct and contract violations. Simply removing a few people from contract management at AGNA or Wackenhut, or creating a new corporate ethics compliance officer, is not going to ensure serious accountability. Allowing those responsible to quietly resign and seek work with other U.S. contractors, as guard force whistleblowers report is happening now, will only perpetuate this problem.

3. State Department representatives either knew or should have known about this longstanding and dangerous situation regarding U.S. Embassy Kabul security. The State Department's repeated warnings to AGNA were of no consequence, and Department officials responsible for oversight of this contract themselves should be held accountable.

4. Those whistleblowers who have come forward to disclose the mismanagement of this State Department contract should be protected from retaliation for doing so.

5. The State Department should consider whether the security of an embassy in a combat zone is an inherently governmental function, and therefore not subject to contracting out. The language in the 2009 National Defense Authorization Act could be strengthened to prohibit the reliance on private security contractors for inherently governmental functions, and to include protection of the diplomatic mission in a combat zone as being inherently governmental. If embassy security in combat zones is determined not to be an inherently governmental function, the State Department should consider requiring military supervision of its private security contractors guarding U.S. embassies in combat zones.

6. The State Department should consider initiating suspension and debarment proceedings against the companies ArmorGroup North America, Inc. (AGNA) and Wackenhut Services, Inc., as well as against any individual employees of these companies who were responsible for contract-related improprieties or abuses, to prevent these entities from entering into future contracts with the federal government.

Please contact me at (202) 347-1122 if you have any questions or need further information or evidence to aid your efforts. Thank you for your consideration of this very important matter.

Sincerely, Danielle BrianExecutive Director

Attachments: 5 documents (complete pdf of attachments 1-5)

12 photographs

cc: Senator Susan CollinsSenator Claire McCaskillState Department Inspector General Harold W. GeiselCommission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan

Link to letter: http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files/letters/contract-oversight/co-gp-20090901.html
==================

When is enough, enough. I think we all have just about had it with this type of taxpayer dollar wasting nonsense.

Foodie Tuesday: Home Made and Home Canned Salsa

What you need:

Four (4) Five gallon buckets of fresh, homegrown tomatos. (Buckets filled to about 3 inches from the top)

Two packages of mild canning salsa mix. Available in the canning section of most large supermarkets. (You can add another package or two if you wish)

Five ounces of Chili Powder.

Three ounces of Dried Garlic Powder.

Four pounds of large White Onions.

Twenty-five Jalapeno Peppers, mostly seeded.

Quarter pound of seeded Serrano Peppers--Optional

This yields approximately 27 quarts of salsa. You may want to split the recipe in half unless you have two large soup pots.

To Prepare:

Wash, core and cut the tomatos into quarters or smaller.

Drain the 'maters. Use a hand blender to churn the tomatos to the consistency of thick tomato sauce. Let sit a half hour or so and skim the excess liquid off the top. (This recipe is not for a chunky style salsa as some may not prefer a really chunky texture, but it IS thick)

Finely chop the peppers and onions---BE SURE TO USE GLOVES!!!

Sweat the peppers and onions.

After the peppers and onions have been duly sweated, add them, together with the salsa mix packs and spices, to the tomatos. (At this point, you can add some salt to taste--couple of level tablespoons or so) Cook over high heat, stirring frequently, until mixture has reduced by about 20%. Turn off heat and ladle salsa into the quart jars. (Salsa should be as thick as the below photo.)

Now, if you Can on a regular basis you may want to use the canning directions in your Ball Blue Book of Preserving, which you can get at most Wal-Marts or online. Since the wife has been canning for years, and is responsible for the outstanding salsa in these photos, and knows a few tricks of the trade, instead of a hot water bath, she uses a pressure cooker. Put a couple of inches of water in the pressure cooker so that when the seven quarts are added, the water comes up to just below the shoulder of the jars. Cover the pressure cooker as you normally would, turn up the heat, and wait until steam steadily escapes from the top nozzle. Add the weight (10 psi notch) and cook for 10-12 minutes. Turn off pressure cooker and let sit 15-20 minutes or so. Remove weight and pressure cooker lid. If jars aren't properly sealed or in the process of their lids popping shut, take the jars out and turn them upside down on a towel for a couple of hours. If a few of the jars still aren't properly sealed, run them through the pressure cooker again or pop them in the fridge and eat the salsa within the next three or four days. (When you remove the jars from the pressure cooker, be sure to tighten the rings which you loosely, but somewhat tightly secured before you put the jars in the cooker.)

For best results, leave the salsa in the fridge overnight. If you follow this recipe, you will feel the heat on the aftertaste rather than upfront. For more heat add the Jalapeno seeds or more hot peppers. As with any recipe, you can modify this to suit your own personal taste.

If you have never canned and are a bit squeamish about using a pressure cooker, they are pretty safe, but most use a plastic plug in the lid as the overpressure relief mechanism. You do not want to be looking down at that plug when it pops. Otherwise, as long as you follow the canning directions, you should be fine. If you do want to start canning, be sure to get the best quality pressure cooker you can afford.

For the cost conscious.....if you are using jars and rings that you already have on hand and are using tomatos that you grew from seed or got from a friendly farmer, then including the cost of the lid and the gas (I do not recommend using an electric cooktop for canning), you can make this salsa for less than fifty cents a quart.

Canning is time consuming, but fun and satisfying..........and it is something your kids will remember and appreciate for the rest of their lives. (And with the economy the way it is, it's a skill you may want to bone up on.)