EURO DRAGS GERMANY DOWN

5 December 2011

Standard & Poor’s has warned Germany and the five other triple A members of the eurozone that they risk having their top-notch ratings downgraded as a result of deepening economic and political turmoil in the single currency bloc.

The US rating agency said late on Monday that Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Luxembourg were all being placed on “creditwatch negative”, indicating there is a 50 per cent chance of a downgrade within 90 days.

A total of 15 countries in the EU were placed on watch with negative implications by S&P, and the agency said: “We expect to conclude our review of eurozone sovereign ratings as soon as possible following the EU summit scheduled for [December] 8 and 9.”It warned all of the six triple A rated governments that their ratings could be lowered to AA+ if the creditwatch review failed to convince its experts. Markets have been braced for a potential downgrade of France, but few expected Germany’s top rating to be called into question.

With regard to Germany, S&P said it was worried about “the potential impact … of what we view as deepening political, financial and monetary problems with the European economic and monetary union.”

The agency is acting as eurozone governments make further progress towards a comprehensive deal to contain the region’s sovereign debate crisis ahead of a crucial EU summit on December 9. Berlin and Paris want the eurozone to sign up to tougher fiscal rules to calm investors’ worries.

S&P told the six governments it would conclude its review “as soon as possible” after the summit. It told governments: “[I]t is our opinion that the lack of progress the European policymakers have so far made in controlling the spread of the financial crisis may reflect structural weaknesses in the decision-making process within the eurozone and European Union.”

S&P’s move at such a sensitive stage in negotiations is likely to spark further recriminations following ongoing political criticism about the behaviours of rating agencies during the crisis. They stand accused by many politicians of exacerbating the crisis and are facing stringent new regulation.

But the rating agencies are worried about who will pick up the bill for any eurozone solution with many plans likely to increase the strain on the triple A countries.

Governments are concerned that a downgrade will make it harder for the eurozone bail-out fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, to arrange financing in the markets for its rescue packages for Ireland, Portugal and Greece, as it is underpinned by guarantees from the six nations which are rated triple A. Those countries also fret that it could raise their own financing costs.

Any downgrading would further diminish the number of top-rated countries after S&P cut the US earlier this summer, although it saw its borrowing costs fall on the move as investors remain desperate for highly-rated paper.

 

D.E.A. Laundered Money For Mexican Drug Cartels That Got Guns From A.T.F.

“Undercover American narcotics agents have laundered or smuggled millions of dollars in drug proceeds as part of Washington’s expanding role in Mexico’s fight against drug cartels, according to current and former federal law enforcement officials,” the New York Times reports. Does that sound familiar?

It’s the exact same explanation the ATF used to justify Operation Fast and Furious, wherein ATF agents “allowed” some 2000 firearms to walk from U.S. gun stores to the Sinaloan drug cartel. Just like the DEA’s money laundering ops, ATF’s so-called “botched sting” operation was designed to “catch the big fish.” Damningly, in ten months F&F did no such thing.

The DOJ pulled the plug on Fast and Furious roughly a year ago, after drug thugs murdered U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry with ATF-enabled firearms. As far as we know, the DEA’s “Cash for Goons” program is ongoing.

Former D.E.A. officials rejected comparisons between letting guns and money walk away. Money, they said, poses far less of a threat to public safety. And unlike guns, it can lead more directly to the top ranks of criminal organizations.

Yeah, sure. In theory. Maybe. In practice? The Times singularly, spectacularly fails to question the DEA on the number of prosecutions tied to Cashwalker. But they do provide a window into Uncle Sam’s participation in the financial side of the Mexican drug trade.

Today, in operations supervised by the Justice Department and orchestrated to get around sovereignty restrictions, the United States is running numerous undercover laundering investigations against Mexico’s most powerful cartels. One D.E.A. official said it was not unusual for American agents to pick up two or three loads of Mexican drug money each week. A second official said that as Mexican cartels extended their operations from Latin America to Africa, Europe and the Middle East, the reach of the operations had grown as well. When asked how much money had been laundered as a part of the operations, the official would only say, “A lot.”

“If you’re going to get into the business of laundering money,” the official added, “then you have to be able to launder money.” . . .

And the former officials said that federal law enforcement agencies had to seek Justice Department approval to launder amounts greater than $10 million in any single operation. But they said that the cap was treated more as a guideline than a rule, and that it had been waived on many occasions to attract the interest of high-value targets.

“They tell you they’re bringing you $250,000, and they bring you a million,” one former agent said of the traffickers. “What’s the agent supposed to do then, tell them no, he can’t do it? They’ll kill him.”

So there’s a paper trail to the DOJ. No doubt the embattled Attorney General received but didn’t read the emails on Cashwalker either. And no one in DOJ connected the dots between two “sting” operations that helped the Sinaloans do business in the United States. Totally unconnected. (/sarcasm)

There’s simply no other way to put this: the United States government is in business with at least one Mexican drug cartel, now fully revealed as an international criminal syndicate.

The ATF and State Department ran the guns (including military and law enforcement sales). The DEA laundered and smuggled the cash. It’s only a matter of time before we learn that ICE and the CPB gave the drugs safe passage. Or, perhaps, smuggled the drugs into the U.S. for the bad guys.

More than that, Cashwalker puts the possible motives for Gunwalker into fresh perspective. Or, more accurately, a new foul perspective.

From the start of the Gunwalker scandal, Mike Vanderboegh of the Sipsey Street Irregulars has maintained that Fast and Furious was an attempt by the Obama administration to create a crisis to allow the feds to introduce gun grabbing legislation. The recently revealed anti-gun email from former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke gives credence to this theory.

I’ve suggested three alternative explanations. First, that the ATF enabled illegal firearms purchases to arm the Sinaloa drug cartel in an effort to counter a [complete] government takeover by Los Zetas. Second, that Uncle Sam let the guns go because various bureaucrats were on the take. And third, one, two and three.

In the light of this new angle, I’m going with door number three: gun-grabbing, CIA machinations and corruption. Hundreds of millions of dollars in cash flowing through American bureaucrats hands and no one takes a taste? Unlikely.

The Times doesn’t get it. They don’t grasp the full importance of the fact that Gunwalker recruited law-abiding American gun store owners into a criminal conspiracy, just as U.S. banks must be accomplices to the DEA’s epic money laundering. Even if the feds are fighting crime with these stingless stings—and there’s no reason to believe they are—the programs are perverting the rule of law in a country founded on that principle.

What’s more, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, ICE Agent Jaime Zapata and dozens if not hundreds of Mexicans paid for the inevitable blowback from Operation Fast and Furious with their lives. Cashwalker too; the money the DEA laundered for the cartels is drenched in blood.

No matter what their rationale, the U.S. government is guilty of aiding, abetting and conducting a criminal enterprise.

No wonder President Obama’s minions are doing everything they can to keep a lid on Fast and Furious. If the full truth were known, the current administration would be doomed. At least that’s what I’d like to believe.

U.S. Military Sources: Iran Has Missing U.S. Drone

Iran is in possession of a RQ-170 Sentinel drone that went missing over the Islamic Republic, U.S. military sources told Fox News on Monday.

The Sentinel is the same kind of stealth high tech drone that was used to monitor the compound during the raid that killed Usama bin Laden in Pakistan, the sources said.

The sources confirmed the Iranians have the drone, however, they did not say that the Iranians shot down the spy plane, as was reported by Iran’s official IRNA news agency.

“An advanced RQ-170 unmanned American spy plane was shot down by Iran’s armed forces. It suffered minor damage and is now in possession of Iran’s armed forces,” IRNA quoted an unidentified Iranian military official saying Sunday. The official also warned of strong and crushing response to any violations of the country’s airspace by American drone aircraft.

Earlier, the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan issued a statement saying the aircraft may have been a drone that operators lost contact with last week while it was flying a mission over neighboring western Afghanistan.

A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the incident, said the U.S. had “absolutely no indication” that the drone was shot down.

Iran is locked in a dispute with the U.S. and its allies over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program, which the West believes is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. Iran denies the accusations, saying its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and that it seeks to generate electricity and produce isotopes to treat medical patients.

The RQ-170 Sentinel is made by Lockheed Martin and is equipped with stealth technology.

Iran said in January that two pilotless spy planes it had shot down over its airspace were operated by the United States and offered to put them on public display. In July, Iranian military officials showed Russian experts several U.S. drones they said were shot down in recent years.

Also in July, Iranian lawmaker Ali Aghazadeh Dafsari said Iran’s Revolutionary Guard shot down an unmanned U.S. spy plane that was trying to gather information on an underground uranium enrichment site.

Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., told Fox News on Monday that “it’s less likely than not” that the Iranians did not shoot down the plane, but it had a mechanical or computer malfunction that caused it to go down “and then used it for propaganda purposes.”

“In the past, they have claimed these shoot-downs and been unable to produce any pieces of the drone, and currently, they have not exhibited any piece of the RQ-170 yet,” he said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/05/us-military-sources-iran-has-missing-us-drone/#ixzz1fgPZBpu9

 

BREAKING NEWS: Iran Has Missing U.S. Stealth Drone

U.S. military sources confirm to Fox News that Iran is in possession of a RQ170 SENTINEL stealth drone – the model that was used in the bin Laden raid – that vanished over the weekend and which Iran claims it shot down.

More headlines from FoxNews.com:
http://email.foxnews.com/t?ctl=176F6:EC89B08D002CFCA45C592AC63A2CB731&

Watch Fox News Channel for complete coverage of this story and all breaking news.

 

Fear Of Second Obama Term Spurs Record Gun Sales

Single day firearms purchases hit all time high

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Monday, December 5, 2011

As the debate raged last week over the attempt to pass a law that would allow U.S. citizens to be detained indefinitely without trial, Americans were busy preparing for their own form of ‘homeland security’, as gun sales hit an all time high for a single day on Black Friday.

“Numbers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation show an all-time one-day high for background check requests from gun buyers last Friday,” reports ABC News. “There were 129,166 requests to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)–a third more than the previous record of 97,848 on Black Friday 2008, FBI spokesman Stephen Fischer said. On Black Friday last year, there were 87,061 requests.”

The actual number of sales was also likely to be far higher because a buyer can purchase numerous guns per each background check.

The reason?  If Obama secures a second term in office, Americans fear that he will use a lame duck presidency to fulfil promises to gun control advocates to take a bite out of the second amendment.

“Managers from both Griggs and Wholesale Sport say the presidential elections have a big effect on sales,” reports KNDU. “Sales went up four years ago when Obama was elected into office and they say with the new elections around the corner, many fear the President will work on changing gun control laws during his second term in office.”

Indeed, gun sales have been riding high every year since Obama took office, with a noticeable spike in first time gun buyers.

Gun stores across the country reported similar scenes of people queuing up from the early hours of the morning to take advantage of special deals on both collectors items and new firearms.

“I think there also is a burgeoning awakening of the American public that they do have a constitutional right to own guns,” said Larry Keane, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, adding that there has been a significant increase in the number of women buying firearms.

Earlier this year, President Obama told gun control advocate Sarah Brady that his administration was working “under the radar” to sneak attack the second amendment rights of American citizens.

During a March 30 meeting between Jim and Sarah Brady and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, at which Obama “dropped in,” the president reportedly told Brady, “I just want you to know that we are working on it (gun control)….We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”

Just over a month later it emerged that the administration had been sending guns to Mexican drug gangs via the “Fast and Furious” program while simultaneously blaming border violence on the second amendment.

But it’s not just distrust of the Obama administration that is driving sales. With local authorities increasingly being forced to lay off police officers, citizens are wary of criminals becoming emboldened and are taking steps to protect their own families. Fear of riots and mass civil unrest has also been frequently cited as a reason for more Americans stockpiling guns.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.

 

Are Americans in Line for Gitmo?

 

by Ray McGovern, December 05, 2011

Ambiguous but alarming new wording tucked into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and just passed by the Senate is reminiscent of the “extraordinary measures” introduced by the Nazis after they took power in 1933.

And the relative lack of reaction so far calls to mind the oddly calm indifference with which most Germans watched the erosion of the rights that had been guaranteed by their own constitution. As one German writer observed, “With sheepish submissiveness we watched it unfold, as if from a box at the theater.”

The writer was Sebastian Haffner (real name Raimund Pretzel), a young German lawyer worried at what he saw in 1933 in Berlin but helpless to stop it since, as he put it, the German people “collectively and limply collapsed, yielded, and capitulated.”

“The result of this millionfold nervous breakdown,” wrote Haffner at the time, “is the unified nation, ready for anything, that is today the nightmare of the rest of the world.” Not a happy analogy.

The Senate bill, in effect, revokes an 1878 law known as the Posse Comitatus Act, which banned the Army from domestic law enforcement after the military had been used — and often abused — in that role during Reconstruction. Ever since then, that law has been taken very seriously — until now. Military officers have had their careers brought to an abrupt halt by involving federal military assets in purely civilian criminal matters.

But that was before 9/11 and the mantra “9/11 changed everything.” In this case of the Senate-passed NDAA — more than a decade after the terror attacks and even as U.S. intelligence agencies say al-Qaeda is on the brink of defeat — Congress continues to carve away constitutional and legal protections in the name of fighting “terrorism.”

The Senate approved the expanded military authority despite opposition from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and FBI Director Robert Mueller — and a veto threat from President Barack Obama.

The Senate voted to authorize — and generally to require — “the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons” indefinitely. And such “covered persons” are defined not just as someone implicated in the 9/11 attacks but anyone who “substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.”

Though the wording is itself torturous — and there is a provision for a waiver from the Defense Secretary regarding mandatory military detentions — the elasticity of words like “associated forces” and “supported” have left some civil libertarians worried that the U.S. military could be deployed domestically against people opposing future American wars against alleged “terrorists” or “terrorist states.”

The Senate clearly wished for the military’s “law and order” powers to extend beyond the territory of military bases on the theory that there may be “terrorsymps” (short for “terrorist sympathizers”) lurking everywhere.

Is the all-consuming 10-year-old struggle against terrorism rushing headlong to consume what’s left of our constitutional rights? Do I need to worry that the Army in which I was proud to serve during the 1960s may now kick down my front door and lead me off to indefinite detention — or worse?

My neighbors have noticed, after all, that I now wear a longish beard and, sometimes, even a hat like Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. And everyone knows what a terrorsymp he was. “If you see something, say something!”

Worse still, a few of my neighbors overheard me telling my grandchildren that President Obama should be ashamed to be bragging about having Awlaki, an American citizen, and later his 16-year-old son murdered without a whiff of due process. “If you hear something, say something!”

READ  MORE:

http://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2011/12/04/are-americans-in-line-for-gitmo/

 

 

BOATLIFT, An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience

 

 

Someone asked, “Why didn’t the media show this?”..  It’s because this is who we still are!  And the powers in control for the moment, don’t want any of us to remember who we were and continue to be. That’s why.   We moved 500+ thousand souls in less than 9 hrs, and it took the entire British Navy over 5 days to move 4.5x less people.  This is who we were in WW1, WW2, and this is who we remain, and the powers here and throughout the world had better not forget that. Our massive power and ability lies with our people, not our govt or military. It didn’t in 1775, and it doesn’t still. This video is absolute proof of that.  This was 500 thousand plus victims escaping. Next time it could just as easily be half a million or more armed and angry people being moved to defend.